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EFFIGIES POETICS 



EFFIGIES POETICiE 



me portrait* of fbe iSrittet) lW>*t* 



ILLUSTRATED BY NOTES 



BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, AND POETICAL. 

... 



LONDON : 
JAMES CARPENTER AND SON, 

OLD BOND STREET. 
MDCCCXXIV. 



5 b 










CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introduction 1 

Chaucer 5 

John Gower 6 

John Lydgate 7 

James I. of Scotland 8 

Thomas Occleve 8 

Sir Thomas Wyatt 9 

Lord Surrey 10 

Lord Vaux 11 

Lord Buckhurst 11 

John Harington 13 

Sir Philip Sidney 13 

Edmund Spenser 14 

Bishop Hall 15 

Sir John Harrington 16 

Sir Thomas Overbury 16 

Shakspeare 17 

Sir Walter Raleigh 18 

Joshua Sylvester 19 

Samuel Daniel 20 

Francis Beaumont 20 

John Fletcher 20 

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke 22 

Michael Drayton 22 

Dr. Donne 23 

George Herbert 24 

George Chapman 24 

Richard Corbet 25 

Thomas Middleton 26 

BenJonson 27 

Thomas Carew 29 

Sir Henry Wotton 30 

Earl of Stirling 31 

Philip Massinger 31 



Page. 

Sir John Suckling 32 

Sidney Godolphin 33 

William Cartwright 34 

George Sandys 35 

Francis Quarles 36 

William Drummond 37 

Thomas May 38 

John Taylor 38 

John Hall 39 

William Chamberlayne 39 

Richard Lovelace 40 

Catherine Phillips :.... 41 

John Cleveland 41 

James Shirley 42 

Alexander Brome 43 

Robert Herrick 44 

Abraham Cowley 45 

Sir Richard Fanshawe 45 

Sir William Davenant 46 

George Wither 47 

Sir John Mennis 47 

Richard Braithwaite 48 

John Milton 49 

JohnOgilby 50 

Andrew Marvell 50 

Thomas Stanley 51 

Thomas Hobbes 52 

Lord Rochester 52 

Samuel Butler 53 

Isaac Walton 54 

John Oldham 55 

Lord Roscommon 55 

Thomas Otway 56 

Anne Killigrew 56 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Edmund Waller 57 

Charles Cotton 57. 

Dr. Henry More 58 

Thomas Flatman 59 

AphraBehn 60 

Nathaniel Lee 60 

Thomas Shadwell 61 

John Dryden 62 

Sir Charles Sedley 63 

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset. 63 

George Stepney 64 

John Phillips 65 

William Walsh 65 

William Wycherley 66 

Thomas Parnell 67 

Nicholas Rowe 68 

Samuel Garth 69 

Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham... 70 

Joseph Addison o... 70 

Matthew Prior 71 

Thomas D'Urfey 71 

Sir John Vanbrugh 72 

William Congreve 73 

Elijah Fenton 74 

John Gay 75 

Barton Booth 75 

Thomas Tickell 76 

William Somerville 76 

Alexander Pope... -.. 77 

Jonathan Swift 78 

James Thomson 79 

Dr. Watts 80 

Aaron Hill 81 

Gilbert West , 81 

Colley Cibber 82 

Allan Ramsay 83 



Sir C. H. Williams Pa JJ 

Isaac Hawkins Browne 04 

Lady M. W. Montague g5 

John Byrom g g 

William Shenstone g g 

Charles Churchill g * 

Dr. Young g ~ 

Mark Akenside gg 

Thomas Gray gg 

John Cunningham g g 

George Lord Ly ttelton 90 

Oliver Goldsmith 9 q 

Paul Whitehead 91 

Dr. Armstrong 91 

Thomas Penrose 92 

David Garrick 93 

Henry Brooke 94 

Dr. Samuel Johnson 94 

William Whitehead 95 

Richard Glover 96 

John Logan 97 

William J. Mickle 98 

Dr. Cotton 99 

Thomas Warton 100 

George Colman 101 

Sir William Jones 101 

Samuel Bishop 102 

Robert Burns 103 

William Mason 105 

Joseph Warton 105 

William Cowper 106 

Dr. Darwin 106 

Dr. Beattie 107 

Christopher Anstey ,... 107 

Charlotte Smith 108 

Conclusion 109 



INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the present undertaking is to introduce the public, 
personally as it were, to the most eminent of their countrymen ; 
and to illustrate at once faithfully and with becoming spirit the 
poetical literature of England. 

The method which has been usually adopted, — namely, to pre- 
sent some principal event in the story, with its circumstances of 
scenery, &c. has, perhaps, its advantages. It embodies and makes 
plain to the eye the otherwise evanescent creations of the poet ; 
it throws the colours of reality upon his fictions ; it gives them a 
shape and substance ; and makes them live more clearly in the 
recollection of the reader. But, after all, such shapes and colours 
are the fictions of the painter, and not of the poet. They are sha- 
dows of a shade. The fashion of the original idea may in some 
measure remain, but it is almost invariably attenuated and im- 
poverished. It is too fine or too palpable, too ideal or too vulgar. 
The sketch of the painter never agrees entirely with our previous 
conception ; and so far as it disagrees, it erases and does injury to 
the original impression. We adopt henceforth another man's idea, 
which is neither the poet's nor our own. 

In truth, poetry cannot be transferred to another art, nor 
11 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

explained by another science or language. The logician, 
the musician, and even the painter, must necessarily fail. 
Their syllogisms, and bars, and figures, are dependant too 
much on precedent and order to follow the cloudy flights 
of poetry. They are addressed to a different sense. They 
are bound down by rules of composition, and fettered by the ty- 
ranny of custom. And these impediments, though something ana- 
logous may be traced in poetry, are superadded to the difficulties 
which even the poet himself had originally to vanquish. Un- 
doubtedly, the painter comes far nearer to the poet than either of 
the others who have been mentioned. It has even been insisted, 
that a sort of fraternity (or rather sisterhood) exists between 
poetry and painting. Perhaps this is, in fact, the case : but, if so, 
the former is assuredly the elder muse. Her visions are more 
splendid ; her flight is more rapid ; her glance is more piercing 
and profound. The imagination of the painter is held down to 
the earth by lines and curves, by petty particularities of drapery 
and figure, by contrasts of colour, &c. &c. But the words of the 
greater Muse are winged ; and by them the fancy of the reader 
is sublimed, till he soars with her through shadowy regions and 
golden skies, which it would be idle, as well as a profanation, to 
attempt to reduce to visible detail. 

There are certain things in poetry which can never be justified 
by logical rules, and can scarcely be fully explained even in prose 
language. The truth is, that poetry is often merely suggestive, 
often almost paradoxical ; and the principle upon which it is 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

formed (which we have not space to discuss here) is utterly ini- 
mical to the rules by which the ordinary appearances of nature 
may be represented. Painting is essentially a mimetic art, and 
music, if less imitative, is also less perfect. Poetry deals in ab- 
straction, in excess, and is oftentimes the finest in its extrava- 
gance : but painting always loses something of its power, when- 
ever it approaches the ideal. Again, although the latter art may 
pourtray great beauty or great deformity, it canuot, except as a 
copy, shew intellect in its superlative state. The fact that no artist 
has ever been able to paint the head of Christ, or even the Lear 
or Falstaff of Shakespeare, is. at once sufficient to shew the bounds 
of this " limitary" art. Who is there, also, who can weave with 
the ordinary colours, the fine texture of that creature of the air, 
Ariel ? — Who can fix in the eye of Prospero the magician's 
light ? — Who can buildup, " like a tower," the Archangel Satan ? 
— Who can make plain our dreams of Una, or the love-haunted Ju- 
liet? — Who can plant upon the forehead of Macbeth the words 
of the witch's prophecy ? or who can array the witches them- 
selves, as they traverse our imagination, in cloud and darkness, 
or with thunder and the quick lightnings about them, hideous, 
anomalous, and immortal ? 

These are some of the difficulties which have occurred to the 
proprietor of the present work ; and accordingly he has elected to 
avoid them, and has preferred to lead the reader at once to the 
fountains themselves, from which all the broad current of our 
poetry has flowed. He has had (as has been said) two objects in 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

view ; the one, to offer to the lovers of poetry and art, an inte- 
resting collection of English portraits ; the other, to hring the 
public face to face with the great master-spirits who have pre- 
ceded them, poets and philosophers, —men who were the lustre of 
the times they lived in, and who have left a track of glory 'behind 
them, which it would be, at once, both folly and ingratitude to 
neglect. 

The Portraits now presented are adapted to various uses. They 
have been executed by the most eminent engravers, in a way that 
may entitle them to be held valuable as works of art. They are 
offered confidently to the collector of portraits, and to the general 
amateur ; and it will readily be seen, on an inspection, how well 
fitted they are, either to illustrate separately the works of favour- 
ite writers, or to enhance the value of the great collections of 
English poetry. To the curious, and those more particularly con- 
versant with poetry and art, it may be an interesting study to com- 
pare the lineaments of the Author with his labours, and to trace 
the strange and sometimes intimate analogies which exist between 
the features of individuals, and the most magnificent creations of 
the human mind. 

In so large a number, some portraits will be necessarily less 
interesting than others ; but it is believed that they are all, gene- 
rally speaking, characteristic. The proprietors have not felt them- 
selves at liberty to exclude any writers who have passed the test 
of time, or whose labours have been useful, or have reflected 
grace upon the cause of English literature ; but they have endea- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

voured so to arrange their work that each engraving may bear 
some proportion either to the excellence of the portrait, or the 
eminence of the man. 

The following is an explanatory Catalogue of the Portraits pub- 
lished. It contains a summary of their pretensions, together 
with some brief remarks upon the qualities of mind which have 
distinguished the more illustrious Poets. 



No. !. CHAUCER. 



From a Limning in Occleve's De Regimine Principis, preserved in the Harleian 
Library. 

" Call up him who left half-told 
The Story of Cambuscan bold — 
Of Cambal, and of Algarsife." 

The collection opens with the head of the venerable Chaucek. 
He has been called the patriarch of our poetry ; yet he left no 
posterity behind him. Two blank and barren centuries succeeded 
the death of Chaucer ; as though the luxuriance of his genius had 
exhausted the fertility of the land in which it grew, and nature re- 
quired a long repose before she gave to light a second stately birth. 
Chaucer was a prodigy, considering the age in which he lived. He 
was beyond doubt the greatest spirit that preceded Shakespeare. 
If not so high and universal as that poet " of all time," he was 
nevertheless almost equally a phenomenon : for he arose in the 
darkness of learning, when wit was unknown, and poetry itself 
but a name. He came singly and unsupported : No one preceded 
him ; no one followed him. He cut his way through the air like 
a meteor, and perished a solitary wonder. 



6 JOHN GOWER. 

The head now offered to the public is a likeness of the poet in 
his age. It has nothing of his wit or humour, nothing of the 
flash of genius which would probably have illuminated the 
features of his youth ; but his sweet and sedate expression, 
his grave good sense, his deep observation and pathos, have 
been well caught by the artist, and present altogether a grace- 
ful and serious combination of character. Chaucer was rather 
a portrait painter than an imaginative artist. He was more 
like Titian than Michael- Angelo, Raffaelle, or Rembrandt ; and 
accordingly, in the place of the fantastic attitude or the soaring 
eye, we have a staid and gentle aspect, a steady glance, and that 
particular expression about the mouth which almost invariably 
denotes an observing man. 



No. 2. JOHN GOWER. 

From a Limning- in his Vox Clamantis, preserved in the Cottonian Library. 

The second portrait is that of Gower,— " ancient Gower !" He 
was cotemporary with Chaucer, was somewhat his elder, and in 
fact claims to have been his master — 

*.' Grete well Chaucer when ye meete, 
As my disciple and my poete." 

But there is little resemblance between the fine original verse and 
striking sketches of Chaucer, and the gentle rhymes of the amiable 
Gower. These two poets were members of the Inner Temple. 
They drank together in amity at the fountains of Justice and the 
Muses, and wore out their age in friendship. According to the 
customs of the time, Chaucer became the protege - of John of 
Gaunt, (" time-honoured Lancaster,") and Gower of Thomas 
Duke of Gloucester, another of the uncles of our second Richard. 
The first poet was rich only in fame ; but the latter was affluent, 
and rebuilt the convent of Saint Mary Overie, where his tomb was 
erected, and where he was buried in his laurels. " John Gower 



JOHN LYDGATE. 7 

prepared for his bones a resting in the monastery of St. Mary 
Overie, where somewhat after the old fashion he lieth, right 
sumptuously buried, with a garland on his head, in token that he 
in his life-daies flourished freshely in literature and science." 
We have now given up these graceful customs. We keep out- 
green holly and shining bay for the church pews and city dinners, 
and leave the poet lying " alone with his glory." — The engraving 
of the face of Gower is delicately and beautifully executed. The 
likeness was discovered by the proprietor of this publication in 
the poet's " Vox Clamantis" in the Cottonian Library at Oxford. 
It carries a great air of truth about it ; for it possesses precisely 
the quantity of intellect, and the same gentle character, which we 
should feel disposed to allow to the poet himself. 



No. 3. JOHN LYDGATE. 

From a Limning in the MS. of The Pilgrim, preserved in the British 
Museum. 

Lydgate, the pupil of Chaucer, and a Benedictine monk, is the 
third in point of time. He was a traveller in France and Italy, 
from which place he returned, imbued with the literature of those 
countries, to his monastery at Bury in Suffolk : and there, upon 
the strength of his studies in Boccaccio, Dante, and Alain Chartier, 
he set up as a teacher of the young nobility of England. The 
head of Lydgate is, as the reader will see, not the hermit of the 
cloister, who has worn out his age in fasting and prayer, but the 
monk " who has seen the world," and returned almost anti-mo- 
nastic. He has the bold look of a disputant, not the pale eye of a 
student, nor the impoverished aspect of an ascetic. He was a 
voluminous writer: Ritson enumerates, we believe, at least two 
hundred and fifty of his works. He wrote Eglogues, Odes, 
Satyres, &c. and cultivated the gay equally with the grave, but 
did not succeed eminently in either. 



8 THOMAS OCCLEVE. 

No. 4. JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of Lord Dartmouth. 

James the First, of Scotland, is represented as a child. The 
likeness prefixed to his Poems is beyond measure stiff and unin- 
teresting. He is built up like a wall ; and appears to stand up on 
a mechanical principle. Here, the artist has at least chosen bet- 
ter ; for he has drawn him in his childhood, having a hawk on his 
wrist, and has thrown into his face something of the intellect which 
distinguished him in his maturer life. James, no doubt, stood out 
from his age as a graceful poet; but we cannot altogether sub- 
scribe to the opinion of his countrymen with respect to his merit. 
They say that " it might be imputed to national prejudice " were they 
to rank the Scottish prince as the rival of Chaucer : — and we 
think so too. The principal poem of James is called " The King's 
Quair," and was composed by him when he was a prisoner at 
Windsor : and there is also another attributed to him, called 
" The Gaberlunzie man," which has very considerable merit. He 
is said to have played Haroun al Raschid, or rather Henri Quatre, 
occasionally, in his good kingdom of Scotland ; and the " Gaber- 
lunzie man" is a record of one of his achievements. 



No. 5. THOMAS OCCLEVE. 

From a Limning in his De Regimine Principis, preserved in the Bodleian 
Library. 

There is nothing in the head of Occleve to call forth particular 
remark, except that it appears to possess a gentle and perhaps 
somewhat feeble character ; though that very deficiency of high 
intellect might be urged as an evidence of the fidelity of the like- 
ness. Occleve was, it is asserted, a pupil of Chaucer, — that is to 
say, he might have been acquainted with the poet, and without 



SIR THOMAS WYATT. 9 

doubt read and perhaps admired his productions. Six of his 
pieces (" six of peculiar stupidity," according to the bitter Ritson) 
were selected and published by the late Mr. Mason. Occleve 
appears to have written poetry (or rhyme) in Latin, French, and 
English — to have been an officer of the privy seal, and to have 
died at the age of fourscore. 



No. 6. SIR THOMAS WYATT. 

From a Drawing by Holbein in his Majesty's Collection. 

This head of the graceful, courtly, and intelligent Wyatt, is 
engraved after a drawing by Holbein. That severe and faithful 
artist seems to have caught happily the various tints of Wyatt's 
mind, and to have reconciled them in one glowing and elegant 
picture. There is in it a quickness of eye mixed with extreme 
suavity, firmness of spirit with the courtier's grace ; 

" A visage sterne and mild, where both did grow, 
Vyce to contemne, in virtue to rejoice." 

— Wyatt was the friend of the celebrated Surrey, and is lamented 
by him in several elegies. Indeed, Wyatt himself was a man of 
extraordinary wit aud proud accomplishments. He is reported to 
have possessed great skill in arms and arts ; to have been a man 
of literature and business ; and to have been favored by Henry the 
Eighth, who — whatever were his faults — was not accustomed to 
associate with fools. That he should have occasioned the Re- 
formation by a joke, is a story which wants nothing but authen- 
ticity to make it exceedingly interesting. But that he was a 
courtier full of integrity, a wit not without prudence, a poet 
without envy, a faithful friend, an active statesman, and a 
graceful and (for his time) a refined writer, is equally interesting 
and true. Much of this may be even guessed from contemplating 



10 LORD SURREY. 

the portrait. The countenance is like sunshine, — mild, beaming, 
and intelligent. 



No. 7. LORD SURREY. 

From a Picture by Holbein in his Majesty's Collection. 

The accomplished Surrey, the famous lover of the " Ladye Geral- 
dine," comes next. Let but the reader look on him, and he will 
see, if not the " lunatic," at least" the lover and the poet," stamped 
on a proud patrician forehead. This is he who trod upon the 
field of the cloth of gold — who gazed in the magic glass of Corne- 
lius Agrippa — who proclaimed the peerless beauty of his Floren- 
tine lady, and defended it, in tilt and tournament, against all the 
world. Vanity, and love, and heroism, are written on his brow, 
and his life was an illustration of his aspect. He was a believer in 
princes and magicians ; he was a nobleman, a courtier, a lover, a 
knight, a poet, an accomplished traveller, and an eminent soldier. 
He overcame the gallants of Tuscany in honour of his lady Geral- 
dine, and he conquered the Scotch at Flodden-field, in honour of 
his country. It was his misfortune to live in the reign of our 
Henry the Eighth, than whom a more fierce, uncertain, and re- 
lentless brute was never worshipped even among the abominations 
of Egypt. He was arraigned by that tyrant on some groundless 
suspicion, was condemned by him and a base jury, and finally 
murdered on Tower Hill, on the 19th of January, 1547. While 
he was imprisoned at Windsor, he wrote some graceful and touch- 
ing verses, recounting "his pleasure there passed" — 

" when I, in lust and joy, 
With a king's son my childish years did pass, 
In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy ; 
Where each sweet place returns a tasteful sour, 



LORD BUCKHURST. 11 

And the large green, where we were wont to rove 
With eyes cast up into the maiden's tower, 
And easy sighs, such as folks draw in love." 

He was the first writer of narrative blank verse in the English 
language : though his poetry in general is in rhyme, and is more 
like Petrarch perhaps than any other model. He has some of the 
quaintness of his age upon him ; but there is also a fine vein of 
pathos running through his poetry, and occasionally a depth of 
sentiment which is not perceptible in any of his cotemporaries. 



No. 8. LORDVAUX. 

From a Drawing by Holbein in his Majesty's Collection. 

The portrait of Thomas Lord Vaux is engraved after a drawing 
by Holbein. The drapery, &c. are elegant in their way, bufthe 
countenance does not seem to call for any particular mention. It 
is not a face of strong character ; but there is enough in it to 
second Puttenham's eulogy of the author for " the aptness of his 
descriptions" as well as for his " lively and pleasant" songs. There 
is the look of an observer about the eyes, and an approach to 
pleasantly about the mouth. 



No. 9. LORD BUCKHURST. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

Next to Surrey, in point of time, and perhaps before him in 
point of stern intellect, is to be ranked Thomas Sackville, 
Lord Buckhurst. His " Induction" to the Legend of the 
Duke of Buckingham (which formed part of " the Mirrour of 
Majestrates") possesses occasionally great strength and merit. — 



12 LORD BUCKHURST. 

Spenser was undoubtedly indebted to it; and Buckhurst himself 
perhaps owed the original idea to Dante. We confess that we 
must prefer my Lord Buck hurst's " Induction" to his tragedy ; 
though that, as a didactic work, may have its claims upon our 
attention. His description of Sleep, in the former poem — 

" By him lay heavy Sleep, cousin of Death, 
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone, 
A very corps, save yielding forth a breath ;" 

and of old Age ; 

" And next in order Sad old Age we found, 
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind, 
With drooping chere still poring on the ground;" 

and others, to which we can here only refer the reader generally; 
shew in what manner Spenser was his debtor, and also what is 
the peculiar merit of Lord Buckhurst's poetry. It is strong, clear, 
and picturesque, but gloomy and unrelieved. He was born in the 
year 1536— lived through the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and 
became a Counsellor and Ambassador and finally Lord High Trea- 
surer of Queen Elizabeth. His conntenance reminds us of the more 
celebrated Burleigh (not the Lord Burleigh of " The Critic";) 
and though we do not discern very clearly in his portrait that " he 
was facete and choice in his phrase," yet we seem to look upon a 
statesman " of strong judgment, and great fidelity ;" and there is an 
amenity in his countenance, which we can scarcely conceive to 
have been nourished by a contemplation of the horrors of the 
(l Inferno." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 13 

No. 10. JOHN HARRINGTON. 

From an original Picture in the possession of E. M. Harrington, Esq. 

The countenance of John Harrington wears a serious expres- 
sion, and a look of determined endurance. This well becomes 
him who underwent prison and penalty ; yet Ave miss the charac- 
ter of a lover and a poet, to which he has fair claims. Harrington 
married a natural daughter of our Eighth Harry, (EthelredMalte,) 
and so regained his family estates, which an ancestor had for- 
feited, by taking prisoner the person of King Henry the Sixth. 
He afterwards married Isabella Markham, with whom he was im- 
prisoned (in the reign of Mary) for conveying letters to the then 
Princess Elizabeth ; and it was during this captivity that he ad- 
dressed those lines to the lady of his love, by which he is now 
remembered. There is a refinement in his poetry which is almost 
beyond his time ; but the caged bird ever sings the most sweetly. 



No. 11. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of Charles Cholmondley Bering, Esq. 

What shall be said of Sir Philip Sidney ? — That he was the 
gentlest knight and noble ? That he lives like a fiction in the me- 
mory, — " the glass of fashion and the mould of form?" That 
he was a gallant and a hero, before Bayard or St. Foix ; tuning 
his voice to music, sweeter than was ever sung beneath the moon- 
lit towers of Spain, and fighting beyond 

" The knights of Lo^res, or of Lyones, 
Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore ?" 

We really know not— We despair altogether of doing him justice. 
It is utterly inimical to all sober reflection, that we should give 



14 SPENSER. 

ourselves up to such a reputation as that of Sir Philip Sidney. His 
courage, his skill, his grace, his almost fabulous beauty, enchant 
so much the imagination, that when we descend to mere human 
features and ordinary couplets, we are apt to resent our old belief 
as an imposition practised on our youth. What is there iu the 
proud mouth or Roman nose of Sidney, to beget the adoration of 
his cotemporaries ? What is there in his Arcadian verse, to make 
us forget the man, and lift him to the gods ? Surely, nothing. Yet 
he had a fine presence, and an undoubted nobility upon him. 
His songs are the songs of an accomplished lover: his deeds were 
the deeds of a hero ; and he trod from his cradle to his grave 
amidst incense and flowers, and died in a dream of glory. He was 
truly the knight " without fear and without reproach." Envy 
itself never glanced upon him : and, indeed, it is, perhaps, his 
greatest merit that he could run so brilliant (though so brief) a 
career, without a shadow to cross his path, and without leaving 
one foe behind him. 



No. 12. EDMUND SPENSER. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of Lord Kinnoul. 

The Proprietors of the present work hope not to be accused of 
undue boasting, when they offer this head of Spenser as undoubt- 
edly superior to every one hitherto engraved of this surpassing 
poet. The reader is invited to turn to it for a moment, and to 
consider it with reference to the intellectual character of Spenser. 
There is in it (as he will see) a rich, serious, contemplative 
beauty, fantastic, indolent, and voluptuous. There is the eye 
accustomed to dwell on the shadows of the fancy, on fictions of 
the woods and waters, 

" On perilous seas, and fairy lands forlorn." 



BISHOP HALL. 15 

We see nothing of that strange irregular spirit which impelled 
Shakspeare all round the world, and led Milton soaring to the 
stars ; hut a dreaming idleuess, which fed on earthly beauty and 
earthly fortunes, and was content to live for ever on haunted slopes, 
to thread the mazes of enchantment, and to repose in the cham- 
bers of sensual delight. 

Nevertheless, Spenser was a moral poet. He was the poet of 
moral romance. He aimed at being didactic (after a pleasant 
fashion) yet he also loved to loiter by the way, and gave himself 
up to luxurious musings. He did not turn aside from love, or de- 
sire, or lust, from gluttony, or a revel ; butmet and enjoyed them 
all, or made them subservient to his main design. He steeped his 
mind in pleasure, and gave forth the result like a distillation, 
clear and refined ; not stripped of its internal virtue or original 
colour, but merely with the husk and coarse deformity left behind. 
There never was a man who so revelled in description, or whose 
fancy lived so entirely out of the bustle and resort of the busy 
world, as Spenser. He is the poet of leaves and flowers. The 
forests and the fountains, and the smooth clear lakes, are his do- 
main ; and these he has peopled with a grotesque race, such as 
we look for in vain on the dusty and common road of life, crea- 
tures of Fairy Land and of the Muses, whose lives, like their own 
laurels, shall flourish and look green for ever. 



No. 13. BISHOP HALL. 

From an original Picture in Emanuel College, Cambridge. 

Bishop Hall was an amiable paradox. He was a satirist, the 
first, indeed, that our literature can boast of, (if we are to boast 
at all of satirists,) and he was also a man of great piety and extreme 
humility. The latter quality of his mind is visible in the some- 



v 



16 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY. 

what painful expression of his mouth, but his eye retains the 
piercing glance which saw into the vices and follies of mankind. 
Further than this there is nothing remarkable in his portrait. 



No. 14. SIR JOHN HARRINGTON. 

From an original Picture in the possession ofE. M. Harrington, Esq. 

Sir John Harrington was thegodsonof Queen Elizabeth, and son 
of John Harrington already mentioned. He has a cunning and 
somewhat vulgar look ; and, indeed, his poetry has in it but little 
to make us forget his personal defects. His Muse had no alliance 
with royalty ; nor do we trace in his eye any thing of the nobility 
of his blood. We should have guessed that his god was Hermes, 
and not Apollo. 



No. 15. SIR THOMAS OVERBURY. 

From a Picture by Isaac Oliver in the Bodleian Gallery- 

Sir Thomas Overbury's mild and graceful features are indi- 
cative of the gentleman ; but he was something more. He had an 
eye for character, and took note of externals : and his gentle ac- 
count of the gentle milk-maid deserves a page of criticism, if we 
could spare it. Perhaps, ou a second view, the reader may be 
inclined, like ourselves, to trace in the face of Sir Thomas Over- 
bury, the origin of his humour. 

" The face we may the seat of beauty call, 
In it the relish of the rest doth lie." 



SHAKSPEARE. 17 

No. 16. SHAKSPEARE. 

From the monumental Effigy in the Church at Stratford-upon-Avon. 

The likeness of Shakspeare is derived from at least the most 
authentic source , viz. the monument at Stratford-upon-Avon. How 
far it is worthy of him must be left to the consideration of the 
reader. There is, assuredly, an amplitude of forehead, and a be- 
nevolent aspect ; and thus far it is well. But our imagination, 
which in all cases requires so much, is here absolutely insatiable. 
We pass at once the petty limits of a portrait, and disdain to re- 
cognize in any one unaltering countenance, the spirit from whom 
all passions and affections sprung. 

We want a region for the brain ; an eye of piercing and super- 
natural light ; a mouth subject to more changes than the atmos- 
phere ; and the whole blended and made beautiful in one accom- 
plished picture, such as no artist (present or passed) could have 
approached. Raffaelle himself could not have given us more than 
one character, and we want a thousand. In fact, the thing is 
altogether impossible. It is like the imprisoning a wind, or stay- 
ing the voice of Echo. Even the poor fable of Proteus, with his 
one shape changing at will, or the evanescent hues of the chame- 
leon, are sufficient to set at nought the art of painting. But here, 
there is a multitude to be defined, with faces of all complexions, 
and minds of every stature, from princely philosophy to vacant 
idiotism ; and we require Briareus's hundred hands, and a pencil 
dipt in the rainbow, to do even the faintest justice to the superna- 
tural conceptions of our peerless poet. 

The effigy, from which the present engraving was taken, was 

originally painted according to the life. But the late Mr. Malone — 

not satisfied with what he had done already, in print — determined 

to complete his hostility, and smeared over the face with white 

c 



18 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

paint ! — The principal part of the likeness was therefore lost ; for 
there can be but little doubt, that whatever resemblance the bust 
originally possessed, lay chiefly in the colouring. In order to re- 
medy this defect, the present artist has endeavoured to imitate the 
flesh tints, and to restore the shadow which the monotony of the 
paint destroyed. This he has effected with much delicacy, although 
he has had to encounter the disadvantage of a very imperfect 
model. 



No. 17. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

From an original Picture in the collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

More of the adventurer, the soldier, or the courtier, perhaps, 
than of the poet, may be traced in this likeness of Sir Walter 
Raleigh. There is neither the collected meditative look, nor the 
soaring glance which is said to accompany the " fine madness ;" 
but there is a gay, shrewd, undaunted eye, fit for a hero, or the 
gallant, who cast down his embroidered cloak amidst the dust for 
the " virgin queen" to tread upon. There can be no doubt but 
that the resemblance is good ; for it is characteristic of the intel- 
ligent Raleigh. He looks studded all over with pearls and jewels 
and " barbaric gold," rich with the plunder of some El Dorado 
of the west, and wearing an exulting look, like a soldier returned 
home from conquest. 

Raleigh was a poet as well -as a hero ; and his sonnet " Upon 
Conceipt of the Fairy Queen," which is usually prefixed to Spen- 
ser's poems, is very fine. His verses, generally speaking, are neat 
but cold, and have much of the conceit of the time. His flowers 
however, 

" Those pretty daughters of the earth and air," 



JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 19 

must not be forgotten. On the whole, Sir Walter Raleigh has 
great claims upon our regard ; the more especially when we con- 
sider how very rarely it happens that men can wield at once both 
the sword and the pen. , 



No. 18. JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 

From a Print by Van Dalen, prefixed to his Translation of Du Bartas. 

Joshua Sylvester, the once famous translator of Du Bartas's 
" Divine Weeks and Works," wears upon his high forehead the 
laurel crown which his cotemporaries awarded him, and which 
posterity has not thought it worth while to disturb. He has a 
grave and imposing aspect and a severe eye, and altogether forms 
an exceedingly striking picture. He is not unlike some of the por- 
traits of Cervantes that we have seen, although it would be diffi- 
cult to detect a particle of wit or humour in his glance, which is, 
on the contrary, somewhat imperative and didactic. To a person 
unacquainted with him, it would not be easy to say whether he 
was a pedagogue, a soldier, or a poet ; the elements of each seem 
so mingled together. In the times of the Knights Templars, or 
when the heroes of the Cross went singing to battle, he would 
have passed for one of those musical members of the church-mili- 
tant, who cut their way by two distinct roads to the laurelled altar 
of Fame. His poems are cold and not very amusing ; but there 
are in them occasional instances of sparkling ingenious figures, 
and his sonnets are very melodious. 



20 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

No. 19. SAMUEL DANIEL. 

From an original Picture in the collection of Lord Thanet. 

Daniel seems to have been an amiable, quiet man ; but he had 
not, we think, very much of the poetic faculty. He was a smooth 
and tender versifier, aiming generally at some little moral, or 
chaunting, like an unwounded poet, the pains and penalties of 
love. He has in some few instances risen above his level, and 
given us some good verse, but his character is not great among the 
writers of his age. How far the portrait of Daniel agrees with 
his verse, the reader will determine. Daniel's fame shrunk, and 
became dim in the vigorous blaze of Ben Jonson's reputation. It 
is said, that he felt this eclipse, and in his old age, descended from 
the slopes of Parnassus and tilled (literally) the plain as an Eng- 
lish farmer. 
There is something almost touching in his sonnet, 
"And whither, poor, forsaken," &c; 
and that beginning, 

" Restore thy tresses to the golden ore," 
reminds us of Drummond. 



Nos. 20 and 2 1 . FRANCIS BEAUMONT, 

From an original Picture in the collection of the Earl of Har court ; 
AND 

JOHN FLETCHER, 

From an original Picture in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon. 

Beaumont and Fletcher — for we will not divide those who have 
been united in renown — are the starry brothers, the " lucida 






BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 21 

sidera" of our poetical hemisphere, who have ever shone in con- 
junction. As dramatists, they are two of the first who stand up 
to claim our favour, after the long interval which separates Shak- 
speare from the rest of the world. Their comedy is inferior to 
that of Ben Jonson, but it is more airy; and their tragedy pos- 
sesses more elevation, though less pithy and sententious ; and it has 
also a pathos, which their sterner rival did not approach. Beaumont 
and Fletcher were brilliant writers : they possessed buoyancy and 
variety, and, at onetime, were as popular as Shakspeare himself. 
Time, however, that fine adjuster of men's pretensions, has now 
satisfactorily settled the vast pre-eminence of Shakspeare, and has 
placed our associate poets, together with Ben Jonson and others, 
on nearly a level seat beneath. 

The countenance of Beaumont is squared like that which we 
should ascribe to a mathematician ; and, indeed, Beaumont is re- 
ported to have brought the square and rule to limit the too fan- 
tastic wanderings of Fletcher's pen. In the phrase of the day, 
he is said to have " brought the ballast of judgement," while his 
friend came elate and stored with the airier fancy. 

The portrait of Fletcher is one of the very finest in this collec- 
tion. It will, perhaps, strike the reader less at the first view than 
others, but it will improve greatly upon closer examination. 
There is a spaciousness of forehead, and a fine intense expression 
in the eye, which none but a poet could have possessed : it seems 
fixed upon some object, or idea, as though it would " pluck out the 
heart of the mystery" — it is a glance full of pathos, and imagina- 
tion, and love. In the original picture, the face looks eager and 
florid, like the poet's verse, and the countenance, altogether, is, to 
our apprehension, eminently striking, and full of character. Let 
not the reader be sceptical too soon, as to the excellence of this 
portrait, but refer to it again — and again. 



22 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 

No. 22. FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE. 

From an original Picture in the collection of Lord Willoughby de Brooke. 

Lord Brooke called himself, by way of distinction, " The Friend 
of Sir Philip Sidney." We admire the humility of this amiable 
Pylades, who was content to merge his own reputation in the 
greater splendour of his friend ; and the more so, as he himself 
possessed very considerable claims on our admiration. We are 
ashamed of such trifles, but— if the " Friend of Sir Philip Sid- 
ney" had had any thing but the unbecoming hat which the pain- 
ter has inflicted upon him, we should have looked with somewhat 
more of satisfaction upon his really interesting countenance. A 
man could as soon stand under a tower, as a poet affect personal 
pretensions under such difficulties. Lord Brooke has written a 
volume of Plays and Poems : we decidedly prefer the latter. 



No. 23. MICHAEL DRAYTON. 

From an original Picture at Dulwich College. 

Drayton, the poetical Cellarius of England, was a voluminous 
and meritorious writer. He has immortalized every rivulet from 
the Sid to the Tweed ; he has made famous the Barons' wars, 
and embalmed, in poetry, the traditions of our ancestors, and the 
smaller offsets of history. His poetry runs evenly, but is not very 
imaginative. His face has all the precision of his verse without 
its beauty; it is square-cut, and somewhat heavy in its fashion. 
There is nothing but his eye which is in any manner indicative of 
the laurel. Drayton's " Polyolbion" is now a treasure to our 
antiquarians, and not the less so from its being illustrated by the 
notes of the " learned Selden." 



DR. DONNE. 23 

No. 24. DR. DONNE. 

From an original Picture in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Barrett. 

Donne's face is shaped like a triangle : but he has an eager eye 
and a singular countenance. His face seems as full of conceits as 
his verses, but it wants the sentiment which the latter possess. 
There is scarcely a poet in our language who has so thoroughly 
mixed up the good and the bad together. He utters often deep- 
felt things, finely modulated lines, and casts out imaginative ideas, 
almost all of which duly expire in cold metaphors and harsh 
phrases ; as if he delighted in surprising us by his ingenuity, in- 
stead of aiming to afford us unmingled pleasure. One of his 
poems, beginning with those two beautiful lines, 

' ' I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, 
Who died before the God of love was born — " 

runs off immediately into quaint, idle, fantastic expression ; and 
others seem made, like a rebus or a charade, to tempt the patience 
of the reader, or to exercise his talent for unravelling difficulties. 
Donne was successively a law student, a man of letters, a man of 
the town, and lastly, (by King James's " command") a divine and 
theologian ; and we have accordingly a little of each in his verses. 
He has the character of having been as eminent a preacher as poet ; 
but we are not competent to speak upon this subject, having never 
invaded his theological writings. He wrote satires, odes, epitha- 
lamions, and divine poems. He celebrated Bishop Valentine, who 
" marries, every year," . 

" The lyric lark, and the grave whispering dove ;" 

and, in short, ran through most of the varieties of rhyme. Old 
Isaac Walton wrote his life, and Cowley was his imitator. 



24 GEORGE CHAPMAN. 

No. 25. GEORGE HERBERT. 

From a Print by White, prefixed to his Poems. 

We have now before us a pleasant countenance, and a good intel- 
ligent eye ; but nothing further to denote the quality of mind 
which the author possessed. Herbert was a man of noble family, 
and his " florid wit, obliging humour in conversation, fluent elo- 
cution, and great proficience in the arts," gained him much repu- 
tation in his life-time. He went eventually into the church, " not 
without special encouragement from the king," and there trained 
his poetry to religious exercises. 

The judgment of an age has decided somewhat against the opi- 
nion of Herbert's cotemporaries, and we do not feel inclined to 
dispute the verdict. Poetry is a wilful thing, and will not be sub- 
dued entirely to the service of either law, medicine, or divinity. 



No. 26. GEORGE CHAPMAN. 

From a Print prefixed to his Translation of Homer. 

Chapman has a head like a lion. It is sturdy, and strongly- 
marked, and carries the look of a disputant. This old poet has 
the reputation of having made the finest translation of Homer ex- 
tant ; and we think that few persons who have read it, (more 
particularly the Odyssey,) will feel inclined to question his claim. 
There may be smoother versions, and even more correct ones ; 
but there is none, in our knowledge, which bears so entirely the 
marks of inspiration, or which contains the strength and spirit of 
the Greek original like that of Chapman. He was a believer in 
the divinity of poetry, and a fierce enthusiast in his art : more- 



RICHARD CORBET. 25 

over, he held Homer in adoration, and seems to have clothed him 
in an English dress, out of mere veneration for his name. Homer, 

(" Whom when Apollo heard, out of his star, 
Singing the godlike acts of honoured men, 
And equalling the actual rage of war, 
With only the divine strains of his pen, 
He stood amazed,")- 

he sang, first and last and greatest, in the greatest art, which " is 
not of the world indeed, but (like Truth) hides itself from it." — 
Chapman was a dramatist also. He wrote tragedies and come- 
dies ; he translated (besides the Iliad and Odyssey) the so called 
Hymns of Homer, and completed the story of Hero and Leander, 

" Whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung," 

which Marlow had began ; but he wrote scarcely any original 
rhyme. His verse is occasionally cramped, and sometimes harsh ; 
but he had the wisdom of a learned man, and the fiery strength of 
a poet, and was altogether competent to the proud task which he 
took upon himself to perform. 



No. 27. RICHARD CORBET. 

From a Picture by Jansen, in the Hall of Christ Church College, Oxford. 

Bishop Corbet — " Jolly Bishop Corbet" — was a lively writer, 
and did not belie the aspect which the painter has here presented. 
He had shrewdness and wit, — wrote the " Iter Boreale," — hu- 
morous " Letters" in rhyme, to his friends, — some elegies, — a 
ballad or two, — and certain non-descripts in verse ; such as — 
" Upon an unhandsome Gentlewoman who made Love to him," 
— " The Distracted Puritan," &c, which last is a lively, and not 



26 THOMAS MIDDLETON. 

ill-natured cast, and may be allowed to an orthodox bishop, when 
dealing with a refractory dissenter. His little song of " The 
Fairies' Farewell," is an affected Lament over the olden times. — 

" Lament 3 lament old abbies 3 
The fairies' lost command ; 
They did but change priests' babies, 
But some have changed your land." 

The third line sounds oddly enough ; but the bishop was a wag, 
though not much of a poet. 

Corbet was so inveterate a humourist, that his lively vein runs 
even into his elegies, as may be seen in the " Elegy on the Death 
of his own Father." 

" Besides his fame, his goods, his life, 
He left a griev'd son and a wife : 
Strange sorrow, not to be believed, 
When the son and heir is grieved." 



No. 28. THOMAS MIDDLETON: 

From a Print prefixed to his Dramatic Works. 

Scarcely any thing is known of Middleton. He seems to have 
held some office in the city ; but, further, all that can be known 
of him lies in his works v He was the author of several plays of 
great merit; particularly, "Women beware of Women," and 
te The Witch," from which last Shakspeare probably borrowed 
his idea of the witches in Macbeth. How much he improved upon 
them is well known. There is something graceful in the aspect 
of Middleton, and an expression in the eye which is above the 
common look of mere worldly intelligence. He was a man of un- 
doubted genius. The characters of Leantio and Bianca, the Duke, 



BEN JONSON. 27 

Livia, and others, in his drama founded upon the story of Bianca 
Capello, (who was the mistress of one of the De Medici,) betray 
great power aud dramatic skill ; and his witches in the play of 
" The Witch," are as airy as the winds whereon they ride. 
Middleton's original conception of those " weird women," is no- 
thing extraordinary ; but his handling of the scenes wherein they 
appear, is altogether masterly. It may compete with any thing of 
the kind in the whole range of the drama. 



No. 29. BEN JONSON. 

From a Picture by Cornelius Jansen, in the Collection of the Earl of 
Hardwicke. 

This is the portrait of Ben Jonson — " Old Ben" — " Father 
Ben," (as Howell calls him,) the cotemporary of Shakspeare 
and Fletcher, and Beaumont's friend. 

" How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, 
That unto me dost such religion use !" 

This is he who put such a life into learning, and gave wings to 
history ; who dealt out lofty tragedy like an oracle, and added 
substance unto airy wit. Look on him, courteous reader, and you 
will see the elements of that humour from which sprang so many 
masterly fictions ;—Kitelt/, and Bobadil, (fine Bobadil, who swore 
" by the foot of Pharaoh,") — Mosca and his Fox, (wiser than 
Esop's,) who could flatter even the fees from lawyers : 

" I oft have heard him say how he admired 
Men of your large profession, that could speak 
To every cause, and things mere contraries, 
Till they were hoarse again,— yet all be law." 



28 BEN JONSON. 

Face and Subtle, (twin children of Hermes,) who first pillaged the 
world and then quarrelled over the spoil, — and that rich idealist, 
Sir Epicure Mammon; the only man on record who ever went be- 
yond his dramatic name. We should like, we confess, though we 
are not outrageous gourmands, to spend some short six weeks 
with that illustrious knight, in his retreat opposite to Barataria, — 

" Where we might eat our mullets, 

Soused in high country wines, sup pheasants' eggs, 
And have our cockles boiled in silver shells, 
Our shrimps to swim again, as when they lived, 
In a rare butter, made of dolphin's milk, 
Whose cream does look like opals ;" 

and then to recline on the Persian silks, and " taste the air of pa- 
laces," and other the accumulated luxuries of him who, for one 
cloudless month, lived lapped in a golden dream, and enjoyed, 
more nearly than any one else, the virtues of the elixir vitae and 
the philosopher's stone. 

Jonson was a man of rare power. His mind, indeed, was built 
up by study ; and he attained his lofty eminence in the world by 
casting down his hoards of learning, and rising upon the collected 
thoughts of others. He did not spring up to the " heaven of hea- 
vens," like Shakspeare, on rainbow wings ; nor did his genius 
run wild and untractable, and grow exhausted, like that of Flet- 
cher. What he did, he did well and completely, after his fashion. 
His tragedies are heavy : he imbedded himself so entirely in histo- 
rical facts and classical thoughts, that he could not extricate him- 
self so as to have the full use of his strength, which was great : 
but his comedies, in their way, are matchless. There is a raciness 
in them, and a full vigorous body of humour, which no one has 
surpassed. Congreve has more brilliancy and more wit, but he 
has less substance and no character. Shakspeare's wit is cer- 
tainly superior, and his humour equal ; but whether it be that his 



THOMAS CAREW. 29 

wit is winged and carries us out of the ordinary path or not, we 
cannot say ; but even his comedies seem to offer less solid fare 
than those of Ben Jonson. Shakspeare's comedies, in fact, are 
like the pleasure, and Jonson's like the business of life. 

The countenance of our old poet, here given, is lustrous with 
rich expression. It is not open-mouthed laughter, nor flippant 
wit ; but there is a wealth of character about it, and a depth of 
humour in the eyes, which look like the fountains from which 
the current of comedy flowed. 



No. 30. THOMAS CAREW. 

From a Picture by Vandyke, in his Majesty's Collection at Windsor Castle. 

What a graceful picture is this, too, carrying about it all the 
fine air and fantastic gentility of Vandyke ! Carew was a man of 
family, a courtier, and a poet, and was much beloved by the wits 
of his time. Some of his smaller pieces are exceedingly graceful, 
and, indeed, beautiful. He was as much of an amorist as Sir 
Philip Sidney ; and his verses have more ease, though scarcely 
the same depth of sentiment as those of that prince of chivalry. 
Although Carew has been classed by Pope, with the " mob of 
gentlemen," there are few of them who may be compared with 
him. His little poem, beginning 

" Ask me no more where Jove bestows," &c. 

is the most elegant little thing that ever was built up of conceits ; 
and his masque of " Caelum Brittanicum," though of course infi- 
nitely below Milton's Comus, reminds us, in parts, of that delight- 
ful poem. 



30 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 

No. 31. SIR HENRY WOTTON. 

From an original Picture in his Majesty's Collection at Kensington Palace. 

Sir Henry Wotton is more remarkable for his " characters," 
and his skill in languages, than for his poetry. According to 
Cowley, he was a man, 

" Who had so many languages in store, 
That only Fame shall speak of him in more ; 

though we are afraid that this prophecy has scarcely yet been ac- 
complished. 

In his Reliquice, we find essays on architecture and education, 
aphorisms, panegyrics, biography, letters, and a few verses. We 
have preferred Sir Henry Wotton to a niche in our temple, al- 
though he was not a writer of much verse. In his youth, he 
wrote amorous lines, indeed; as, 

" Why was she born to please, or I to trust 
Words writ in dust ?" &c. 

But in his maturer life, he indited panegyrics in rhyme, trans- 
lated a psalm or two, wrote verses " On a bank as I sate a fishing," 
(old Isaac Walton was the editor of his " Remains,") and made 
his friends as immortal as he could in elegy, or soothed their sor- 
rows with couplets. Wotton was ambassador to Venice, and 
the very striking portrait which we here offer, seems to have been 
taken after his accession to some such dignity. It is copied from 
a picture belonging to the King. 



PHILTP MASSINGER. 31 

No. 32. EARL OF STIRLING. 

From a scarce Print, by Marshall, prefixed to his " Recreations with the Muses." 

William Earl of Stirling, author of " Recreations with the 
Muses," composed divers tragedies in rhyme, and one of those 
" divine" poems which were formerly so often indited, called 
" Domesday, or the great Day of the Lord's Judgement." It is 
not easy to conceive how the following lines from the noble au- 
thor's tragedy of " Julius Caesar" could have been written fifty 
years after Shakspeare's drama, and with the example of that 
great poet before him. It is the account of Caesar dyingunder the 
blows of the conspirators : 

" As of so great ingratitude ashamed, 
He with his gowne when covered first o'er all, 
As one who neither sought, nor wished reliefe, 
Not wronging majestie, in state did fall, 
No sigh consenting to betray his grief. 
Yet, (if by chance or force, I cannot tell) 
Even at the place where Pompey's stature stood, 
(As if to crave him pardon) — Caesar fell !" 

Shakspeare's account of this is not in his best style, but it is 
much better, and more to the purpose, at least, than this. 

There is an air of vraisemblance , and a national character in 
the countenance of Lord Stirling, which the reader will not fail 
to perceive. 



No. 33. PHILIP MASSINGER. 

From a Print, by Cross, prefixed to his " Dramatic Works.'' 

This likeness of Massinger is the only one, we believe, that 
is known to exist. It certainly looks very little like either a high 



32 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 

poet, or an intelligent man. There is something cramped and 
dimiuutive about it ; and yet withal, it has the look of a portrait, 
and with that, we (and the reader also) must perforce be satisfied. 
Massinger was a good dramatist, notwithstanding his picture. 
His " Fatal Dowry," and " Duke of Milan," — his " Unnatural 
Combat," — and above all, his Sir Giles Over-reach, in the well- 
known play of " A new Way to pay Old Debts," are enough to 
justify a great portion of the renown which he now possesses. 
He is a little over- rated perhaps, at present, owing to the exer- 
tions of his editor, (and we confess that we are not inclined to 
quarrel with that sort of partizanship ; it is better than letting 
one's author " go down the wind," as some editors have done :) 
but he will find his level eventually, and it will not be a low one. 
We cannot rate him equally with Ben Jonson in any way, nor 
with Fletcher as a writer of poetiy. He has neither the richness 
of the one, nor the fluent elegance of the other. Yet we should 
be exceedingly perplexed to find in any of their plays, a character 
so complete, — one which went on so manfully and straightforward 
to his purposes, from beginning to last, as the " Over-reach" of 
Massinger. He is quite the beau ideal of a fierce and sordid ty- 
rant. He is brave as a lion ; ravenous as a shark ; his pity is to 
be subdued by nothing, and his hate is quenchable only in blood. 



No. 34. SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 

From an original Picture in the Asftmolean Museum. 

Sir John Suckling— who resembled Horace in more ways 
than in writing verses, was a precocious wit. According to Lang- 
baine, he spoke Latin at five, and wrote it at nine years of age. 
He was indeed a very lively writer, and in his songs, such as, ■ 
" Why so pale and wan, fond lover ?" 



SIDNEY GODOLPHIN. - 33 

and others, reasons pleasantly upon that universal theme — love ; 
and sports with lips and dimples, like one who evidently " never 
felt a wound." As Sir Philip Sidney was the victim, so was 
Suckling the foe of love ; or rather, he was the rhyming Momus 
who haunted the court of Cupid, and had the privilege to say what 
he pleased. 

" Out upon it, I have loved 

Three whole days together ; 
And am like to love three more, 
If it prove fair weather. 

" Time shall moult away his wings 
Ere he shall discover 
Within the wide world again 
Such a constant lover :" — 

and so he goes on, jibing and versifying, to the end of the chapter. 



No. 35. SIDNEY GODOLPHIN. 

From a Drawing by Bulfinch, in the Collection at Straivberry Hill. 

This portrait, and the next (Cartwright) are two of the least at- 
tractive in our collection •. and as our object is to give, as nearly 
as may be, a correct account of this publication, we have no 
hesitation in stating thus much for the benefit of the reader. 
Sidney Godolphin, a small poet of his time, was brother to Go- 
dolphin, the treasurer. It would be difficult to admit that a per- 
son, seemingly so like a stiff petit-maitre, could belong to the 
sounding name of Godolphin, were it not that his own verses, to 
a certain extent, corroborate the picture : they are neat, but 
without force. The features in this portrait are small, and the 
countenance altogether diminutive and weak ; while the hair flows 
down like the waves of the sea, and erases the little appearance of 

D 



34 WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. 

manhood and intellect which the face might otherwise have pos- 
sessed. We ought not to omit to state, however, that Sidney 
Godolphin was, (according to Clarendou) a young man of pro- 
mise and much accomplishment, and that he fell fighting in the 
civil wars. 



No. 36. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. 

From a scarce Pritit by Lombart, prefixed to his Poems. 

" My son Cartwright," says old Ben Jonson, " writes like 
a man." We should not have guessed this from his portrait, 
which is mean and un intellectual ; nor do we, in truth, alto- 
gether subscribe to old Ben's opinion of his " son," even after 
an acquaintance with his verses. Cartwright wrote often plea- 
santly, and sometimes well, but he certainly does not shine 
amongst the literary stars of his age, most of whom were de- 
cidedly his superiors. His lines are generally harsh and bad ; 
and they do not contain much matter to compensate for their 
want of music. He has written." On a Sparrow," — not like 
Catullus j and his verses on the " Memory of Ben Jonson," 
seem dug out of the most rugged vein of poetry. The most 
melodious lines that occur to us, are the following, addressed 
by Cartwright, " To the Memory of a Shipwreck'd Virgin." 

" And thou unfaithful, ill-compacted pine, 
That in her nuptials didst refuse to shine, 
Blaze in her pile. Whiles thus her death I weep, 
Swim down, my murmuring lute ; move thou the deep 
Into soft numbers as thou passest by, 
And make her fate become her elegy." 

Those called " Love's Darts," (which Mr. Campbell has 
quoted in his Specimens) are entitled also to considerable 
praise. 



GEORGE SANDYS. 35 

No. 37. GEORGE SANDYS. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of the Marchioness of Doivnshire. 

This portrait of Sandys, the well knowu translator of Ovid, 
makes us amends for the two last. With a prepossessing and 
striking countenance, and his hair, which looks " sable-sil- 
vered," his slashed dress, and his collar of lace, he forms alto- 
gether an exceedingly graceful picture. The eyes are mild and 
intelligent; and the mouth has a pleasant expression. The 
portrait is not that of a scholar, or a courtier, or a soldier, 
or a mere traveller ; but it is rather a combination of all. The 
" Travels" of this author, with their scraps of verse intermixed, 
are now not much known, yet they are not unamusing. His 
best work, however, is his translation of Ovid; and from this 
volume we must take leave to make one extract, because it is 
a great favourite with a very excellent friend of ours. The 
passage relates to the change of Cadmus and Hermione into 
serpents, and is in the fourth Book of the Metamorphoses. 

" His tongue was yet in motion, when it cleft 
In two, forthwith of human speech bereft : 
He hiss'd when he his sorrows sought to vent, 
The only language now which nature lent. 
His wife her naked bosom beats, and cries 
"Stay Cadmus, and put off these prodigies. 
You Gods, why also am I not a snake ?" 
He licked her willing lips even as she spake : 
Into her well-known bosom glides ; her waste 
And yielding neck with loving twines embrac't :— 
Now are they two, who crent together chained 
Till they the covert of the wood attained. 
These gentle dragons, knowing what they were, 
Doe hurt to no man, no man's presence fear." 



36 QUARLES. 

Sandys was a traveller in Turkey, Egypt, the Holy Land, 
and in parts of Italy; and began his journey through France, 
as he says, about the time that Henri Quatre was murdered 
" bv an obscure varlet." 



No. 38. FRANCIS QUARLES. 

From a scarce Print by Marshall, prefixed to his " Enchiridion." 

Quarles is known chiefly by his " Emblems," which, how- 
ever, we do not think the best of his poetical productions. 
There is much beauty in parts of his " Argalus and Parthenia," 
and some of his elegies have great merit: — not that he was 
a lofty poet, or a very free versifier; but he was an earnest 
writer in his way, and was occasionally very happy, and even 
touching in his diction. The face, here presented, of Quarles, 
has a pinched, but eager look ; his whole figure is prim, and 
somewhat puritanical ; his action is cramped ; and his writings 
form, upon the whole, a good running commentary upon his 
portrait. The following is one of his elegies, and is admired 
by one of the very best judges of English literature, and our 
friend, to boot. We quote, once more, upon the strength of 
his authority, and in order to show our regard for him. The 
sixteenth Elegy goes to shew the impartiality of death — that he 
strikes the eagle, and spares the kite, — that 

" Queens drop away when blue-leg'd Maukin lives, 

And courtly Mildred-dies, when country Madge survives." 

and the seventeenth Elegy thereupon opens thus : 

" Retract that word, false quill ! O let mine eyes 
Redeem that language with a thousand tears : 



WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 37 

Our Mildred is not dead : How passion lies ! 

How ill that sound does relish in these ears ! 

Can she be dead whose conquering soul defies 

The bands of death, and worse than death, the fears ? 

No, no, she sits enthron'd, and smiles to see 

Our childish passions ; she triumphs, while we 

In sorrow, blaze her death, that's death and sorrow free." 



No. 39. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Captain Drummond. 

This is an extraordinary countenance of Drummond, of Haw- 
thornden. Yet it is open and intelligent, and there is a pyra- 
mid of forehead for the phrenologists. His dress is, in itself, 
an exquisite picture ; indeed the eye rests upon it with at least 
as much pleasure as upon his face. There is great beauty in 
Drummond's sonnets and poems, mixed, it must be confessed, 
with a sufficient quantity of conceits. But he was the first 
Scottish poet who ever used our English language with effect, and 
a few faults may be forgiven him. His sonnet, beginning, 
" Dear wood, and you sweet solitary place," 

has a fine air of sylvan repose about it; and his forty-fifth 
sonnet, commencing — 

" Nymphs, sister Nymphs, which haunt this chrystal brook, 
And happy in these floating bowers abide, 
Where trembling roofs of trees from sun you hide, 
Which make Idean woods in every crook ; 
Whether ye garlands for your locks provide, 
Or pearly letters seek in sandy book, 
Or count your loves when Thetis was a bride, 
Lift up your golden heads and on me look !" 

and others, possess great beauty and poetic feeling, with, inva- 
riably, a little alloy of conceit, as we have before stated. 



38 JOHN TAYLOR. 

No. 40. THOMAS MAY. 

From a scarce Print prefixed to his " Breviarie of the History of the Par- 
liament." 

There is a mild and even painful expression in the countenance 
of this writer. If his look be poetical, it speaks, assuredly, the 
quiet and contemplative, rather than the soaring poet. May is 
better known by his translation of Lucan than by his original 
verse. He reminds us occasionally of old Heywood, by the mat- 
ters of fact which he details in his often unornamented verse ; 
but sometimes, 

"As when fierce Rollo with his Danish flood 
Broke in upon thee," 
he betrays something of the true poetic spirit. His description 
of King Philip, when 

" Under a wealthy canopy he sate, 
His robe of colour like the violet," 
is striking, and his account of Edward the Third of England, (in 
his poem of that title,) is not without merit. Upon the whole, 
however, he wants spirit, though he has often redeeming passages. 



No. 41. JOHN TAYLOR. 

From an original Picture in the Bodleian Gallery. 

In regard to the physiognomy of John Taylor, called the 
Water poet, we may venture to pronounce that it did not disgrace 
his calling. He has a shrewd and fierce eye, and a head like a 
bull, and looks stout enough to have pulled a boat from Green- 
wich to the Nore. Taylor's inspiration sprang from all the rivers 
of which he knew anything, but there is no taste either of Castaly 
or Helicon. There is nothing, in short, poetical either in his 
head or his verses : nevertheless, it is a striking head, and fit for 
his profession. He looks like Tom Bowling, or Ben Backstay ; 



WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 39 

but without their sentiment. He would not have loved " the 
gentle Anna" however he might have taken a spell at " Chelsea 
ferry," and have become the badge and the crimson coat. 



No. 42. JOHN HALL. 

From a scarce Print prefixed to his " Horce Vacivce." 

The drapery and action of this portrait remind us of one of the 
old Roman orators ; and there is a something in the eye, almost 
amounting to cunning, which would have sate well on an advocate 
of the forum. Further than this, we have nothing to say regard- 
ing this writer or his portrait. 



No. 43. WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 

From a Print by HertocTcs, prefixed to his " Pharonnida." 
Chamberlayne, the author of " Pharonnida," (which has be- 
come lately known, in consequence of the eulogy of Mr. Campbell, 
and the extracts given in that very interesting publication, "The 
Retrospective Review,") has a serious and observing look. His 
hair flows down like that of Milton, but he has not the great 
poet's lofty and severe glance. Chamberlayne was a physician, 
and is said to have been at the second battle of Newbery. His 
works, long neglected, have now met with, at least, as much ap- 
probation as they deserve. He had not great poetical power, cer- 
tainly ; but there are, in his works, frequently passages of merit. 
His account of the morning is exceedingly good, and, as far as 

we recollect, new : 

" The sluggish morning, sick 
Of midnight surfeits, from her dewy bed 
Pale and discoloured rose." — 

We do not remember anything so striking, or so forcible else- 
where in the Pharonnida. 



40 LOVELACE. 

No. 44. RICHARD LOVELACE. 

From an original Picture at Dulwich College. 

Lovelace bears the reputation of having possessed a beautiful per- 
son : and he certainly looks like a cavalier and a gentleman. He 
was a poet also ; and although his verses are, generally speaking, 
too much like those of a man who " dealt in lieutenantry," and 
the " squares of war ;" yet there are a few really beautiful things 
amongst his compositions, where the gallant seems to get the 
better of the soldier. His lines "To Althea from prison," are 
among the best : here are some of them. 

" When Love, with unconfined wings, 
Hovers within my gates, 
And my divine Althea brings 
To hover at my grates \ 
When I lie tangled in her hair, 
And fettered to her eye, — 
The birds that wanton in the air, 
Know no such liberty. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 
That for a hermitage. 
If I have freedom in my love, 
And in my soul am free, — 
Angels alone that soar above 
Enjoy such liberty." 

It is not often that a colonel, and a handsome colonel, puts forth 
such verses as these. His song to Amarantha — 

" Let it [her hair] fly as unconfined, 
As its ravisher, the wind, 
Who has left his darling east, 
To wanton o'er this spicy nest ;" 

reminds one of Carew. 



CLEVELAND. 41 

No. 45. CATHERINE PHILLIPS. 

From an original Picture in the possession of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

Catherine Phillips, " the matchless Orinda," was the origin 
of the next portrait. There is a placidity in the countenance, 
which well consists with the account that we have of her charac- 
ter. She was an amiable, quiet woman, and wrote on friendship, 
and touched a little upon morals, in verse. She was beloved by 
the poetical and the eloquent in her life-time ; and lamented by 
poets after her death. — The reader will observe that this portrait, 
taking into consideration the dress and the figure which it em- 
braces, is perfectly beautiful as a work of art. Had the face, in- 
deed, worn a different character, the fine voluptuous turn of 
the shape is such as might have belonged to a matron Venus. 
The robe is loose and graceful ; (she is quite a poetess — " zonis 
solutis ;") the hair is parted, shewing a breadth of white fore- 
head, and falls down, curling like hyacinths, towards her rounded 
shoulders; and her bosom is like a rose full-blown. 



No. 46. JOHN CLEVELAND. 

From a Picture by Fuller, in the Collection of Mrs. Isted. 

This is one of the most unpleasant faces to look upon in this col- 
lection. It seems wild, affected, and dull. The engraver has 
done the versifier much honour in devoting his fine talent to per- 
petuate such a head. — As the portrait is more remarkable for being 
a specimen of art, than an interesting portrait, it must be valued 
accordingly. Cleveland — "the ingenious and learned Mr. Cleve- 
land," wrote letters and verses on all possible subjects— he "lisped 
wit" when a mere child — wrote compliments, satires, and epi- 



42 JAMES SHIRLEY. 

grams, and possessed, certainly, a lively vein. Among other 
things, he composed an epitaph on Ben Jonson, which shines out 
in p. 353 of his collected works. 

" The muses fairest light in no dark time, 
The wonder of a learned age ; the line 
Which none can pass, the most proportioned wit 
To nature, the best judge of what was fit : 
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen, 
The voice most echoed by consenting men ; 
The soul which answered best to all well said 
By others, and which most requital made, 
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome, 
Returning all her music with his own ;" &c. 

But he did not always write so well, nor on such unexception- 
able subjects. 



No. 47. JAMES SHIRLEY. 

From an original Pictwe in the Bodleian Library. 

Shirley was the last of that heroic line of dramatic poets, which 
it has now become the (good) fashion to admire. For many years 
they were forgotten : their rich and golden lines were hidden like 
the fretted roofs of the cave of Mammon : younger writers usurp- 
ed their high places ; and critics tried and condemned them by 
the laws of prose. All this is fortunately at an end j and a fresh 
impulse having been given to men's thoughts by the startling 
events of later times, the present generation of writers have ven- 
tured to consult their own feelings, and to exert their own judg- 
ment, in the room of being spell-bound any longer by the authority 
of their elegant predecessors. The result has been an inquiry into 
the treasures of our old literature, and a knowledge of wealth, be- 
yond all comparison greater than anything that has been discovered 



ALEXANDER BROME. 43 

since the days of Columbus. The principal amount of thanks is 
due to Mr. Charles Lamb, whose admirable specimens of our 
old dramatic poets no one who affects to be a lover of poetry 
should be without. Mr. Gifford followed, with his editions of 
Massinger and Ben Jonson ; and the taste for our older and better 
literature has now become general. Shirley, as we said before, 
is the last of this great train of writers. He moves, not as the 
grandest star, indeed, of the hemisphere, but sparkling and grace- 
ful notwithstanding : rolling and shining in the great body of 
light which Shakspeare threw abroad upon the age in which he 
lived, and reflecting it like some gentler planet, in many a glitter- 
ing figure and luminous thought, which we ought always gratefully 
to acknowledge. He had not much strength, nor did he display 
much profound thinking ; but he was, assuredly, a sparkling, and 
elegant, and occasionally, a beautiful writer. He may be con- 
sidered as being about equal to Ford in power, with less passion, 
and more wit. Besides, he is — " the last ;" and we are apt to 
look upon him as the heir and representative of that illustrious 
family whose fame is to make us known hereafter, when the toils 
and conquests of our statesmen and soldiers shall have slipped, 
like mere traditions, from the hands of future historians. As 
Marlow was the first of our dramatists, who awoke with the in- 
spiration fresh upon him, so was Shirley the last upon whom the 
light of the muse descended. 



No 43. ALEXANDER BROME. 

From a Print by Hertocks, prefixed to Ms Plays and Poems. 

Brome, with his broad, shrewd, humorous countenance, seems, 
to have lived to a " green old age." There is no mark of in- 



44 ROBERT HERRICK. 

nrmity, no trace of weariness or discontent upon his forehead, 
and he seems as capable as ever of anathematizing small beer, and 
defending the principles of treble-strong ale. The " two acci- 
dents" which conspired to the publication of his poems, are very 
pleasantly set down — " a lazie disease and a long vacation, the 
one inclining me to do nothing else, and the other affording me 
nothing else to do." 

Brome, if he was not much of a poet, was a lively, jovial 
rhymer. His verses usually smack of the bottle, 

" Come, let us be merry, 
Drink claret and sherry, 
And east away care and sorrow ;" 

or are pregnant with some jest or other, touching war, women, 

or wine. 



No. 49. ROBERT HERRICK. 

From a rare Print by Marshall, prefixed to his " Hesperides." 

This likeness of Herrick is engraved from a bust. The only 
thing remarkable in it is, that it is like the present poet-laureat, 
— Mr. Southey. There is a quick eye, a prominent nose, and a 
fine cut mouth ; and the hair, curling close and all over the head, 
is as compact as some of the author's poems. Herrick was a 
great dealer in the bijouterie of verse, and some of his produc- 
tions are, certainly, very beautifully fashioned, and are crusted 
aU over with sparkling conceits. But he was not often serious ; 
or if he was so, he fails to carry the conviction of his earnestness 
to our hearts. 

The verses by Herrick, which Mr. Campbell quotes, are very 
elegant. The following are pretty •. we quote them in preference 
to others only because they are less known. 



SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE. 45 

Upon a lady that died in childbed, and left a daughter. 
" As gillyflowers do but stay 

To blow and seed, and so away ; 

So you, sweet lady, sweet as May, 

The garden's glory lived awhile, 

To lend the world your scent and smile : 

But when your own fair print was set 

Once in a virgin flosculet, 

Sweet as yourself and newly blown, 

To give that life, resigned your own ; 

But so, as still the mother's power, 

Lives in the pretty lady-flower." 



No. 50. ABRAHAM COWLEY. 

From an original Picture in the Hall of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

We have now before us the portrait of the graceful and fantastic 
Cowley. He was, assuredly, a poet, although addicted too much 
like the last named author, to conceits. His stature, however, 
was greater than Herrick's, who is a writer of trifles : whereas 
Cowley aimed at higher things, and possessed something better 
than mere ingenuity. There are excellent passages and brilliant 
thoughts scattered over his Davideis, and his Anacreontics are 
the best in our language. — In this likeness, which must be al- 
lowed to be an elegant representation of a fantastic man , the eye 
is quick, but without fire, the mouth is shrewd, and the action 
affected, but graceful. Were we inclined to find fault, we might 
insist that the face is almost too sleek for a poet, who is an 
ascetic by charter — but we forget his Anacreontics. 



No. 51. SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE. 

From a scarce Print by Faithorne, prefixed to his " Funeral Sermon." 
Fanshawe is almost unknown to ordinary readers ; yet he is one 



46 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 

of the most harmonious writers of verse in our language., and he 
was, moreover, an ambassador, and a man of repute in his time. 
He has never had justice done to him. We almost wonder that the 
writers of the " Retrospective Review" should for so long a time 
have neglected the translator of Camoens and Guarini. Fan- 
shawe's version of the prologue to the Pastor Fido, shews that he 
possessed an exceedingly fine ear, and some of his minor poems 
contain beautiful lines, and sparkling images. His " Prologue" 
(supposed to be spoken by Alfeo, a river of Arcadia) begins 
thus : — 

" If from old fame, and perad venture not 
Believed at all by you, or else forgot, 
O' the amorous brook ye heard the wonder ever, 
Which to pursue the coy and flying river 
Of his beloved Arethusa, ran 
(O, force of love !) piercing the ocean, 
And the earth's hidden bowels to that isle, 
Where underneath the huge Etnean pile 
Upon his back the kicking giant lies, 
Spitting despiteful flames at hostile skies, 
And leaves it doubtful to the world that's under, 
If heaven at him, or he at heaven doth thunder •. 
That brook am I." 

The reader will forgive one ludicrous epithet (in the ninth line) 
for the sake of the rest of the extract. The countenance of Fan- 
shawe is grave and observing. It is all " ambassador." 



No. 52. SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 

From an original Picture, late in the collection ofR. Cosway, Esq. R. A. 

We confess that we should not have detected "the poet" in this 
curious but striking head. The eyes are not unintelligent ; but the 



SIR JOHN MENNIS. 47 

face is broad and square, and is moreover encircled by a bush of 
hair which we cannot consent to patronize. The engraver, 
however, has done his part well, and has struck out a sturdy 
portrait. Davenant was the author of a folio of poetry, and his 
name is pleasautly connected with that of one or two of our 
greatest poets. His own verses, with the exception of some occa- 
sional stanzas, are not remarkable. 



No. 53. GEORGE WITHER. 

From a scarce Print by Payne, prefixed to his "Emblems." 

Wither has the crabbed cramped look of a puritan. His broad 
hat, and fierce, contracted, frowning brow savour but little of 
the profession of poetry. He would pass muster for a cove- 
nanter or round-head, — for one of old Noll's preaching and 
fighting followers, during the time when that " immortal re- 
bel" played at bowls with crowns and sceptres, turned kingdoms 
into commonwealths, and rode like the 'sea-eagle over the 
sounding ocean, a victor whom few dared meet, and none could 
vanquish. Wither is a voluminous writer. Some of his pieces 
are interesting; and there is one passage in his " Shepherds' 
Hunting," which is surpassingly beautiful ; but generally speak- 
ing, his poetry is indifferent enough. He wrote some of his 
verses while in durance ; and he keeps, we think, iu this por- 
trait, his prison look, — stern and suffering. 



No. 54. SIR JOHN MENNIS. 

From a Picture by Vandyke, in the Collection of Lord Clarendon. 

Whether the merit be in the air of this head, the drapery, 
the expression of the face, or otherwise, we know not; but 



48 RICHARD BRAITHWAITE. 

that this portrait is excellent and even beautiful, no one, we think, 
who looks upon it for a moment, will refuse to acknowledge. 
The painter and engraver indeed seem to have conspired, for 
once, to do high justice to a man. At the first glance, the 
head of Sir John Mennis (though far more handsome and 
more chivalrous) reminds one of some of the portraits of 
Cromwell. There is, however, a gentler expression in his face. 
It has neither the fierte, nor perhaps quite the thought which 
is usually seen lying, like a cloud, on the brow of the great 
Protector. The scarf flows across the breast of our knight like 
a river, and his armour is worthy of the forge of Mulciber. Sir 
John Mennis was the poet laureat of Suckling, and celebrated his 
Horatian virtues. 



No. 55. RICHARD BRAITHWAITE. 

From a scarce Print by Vaughan, prefixed to his " English Gentleman." 

Braithwaite (the historian of Drunken Barnaby, and author of 
various satires and comedies) , has the look of a listener ; and in- 
deed he seems to have sate, through life, a self-elected judge of 
the follies and vices of the surrounding world. What an eye he 
has for a court-martial ! We could almost fancy him dealing with 
the small wits of the army, disengaging their wisdom from the 
stays and stocks, the sashes and gilding, with which it is con- 
founded, and laying it bare, and displaying its due proportions, 
for the benefit of admiring villagers. We should tremble for our 
heroes in epaulets and scarlet, were they compelled to abide the 
scrutiny of Mr. Richard Braithwaite. Would they vanquish fewer 
women, or enlist a less number of recruits, if they were stripped 
of the bright plumage of the mind, and made manifest ?— perhaps 
not. 



JOHN MILTON. 49 

No. 56. JOHN MILTON. 

From a Picture by Dobson, in Dr. Williams's Library. 

There is no portrait which at all equals our notions of the ele- 
vated countenance of Milton. It is almost the same with him as 
with Shakspeare : no painting can do him justice. He was the 
parent of that vast creation, Satan, — " the Archangel !" mould- 
ing him, not from the dust of superstition, or the vaporous ex- 
halations of monkish fear, but in the mighty cast of his own 
imagination ; stripping him of beggarly deformity and paltry vices, 
and arraying him in the grandeur of a fallen god, 

" In bulk as huge 
As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
Titanian, or earth-born that warred on Jove ;" 

with limbs that combined the proportions of Hercules and 
Apollo, with the face of a seraph thunder-scarred, and a stature 
which " touched the stars." — We can no more paint the author 
of this than the thing itself. 

We have here given a resemblance of Milton which has never 
before been made public. It is as well authenticated — perhaps 
better, than such pictures usually are : but it fails in some few 
respects, like all others. Nevertheless, there is something cha- 
racteristic in it. There is an approach to sweetness and majesty, 
(both of which Milton possessed in no common degree,) that we 
do not recollect elsewhere. The eye-brow is contracted, like 
that of a thinker ; the glance, is penetrating, yet raised ; the 
mouth wears a sweet expression ; and the hair flows down upon 
the shoulders, and gives a massy character to the whole that is 
not without its grandeur. 

The ordinary portraits of Milton shew little more than his in- 
firmities. We have the 

" Strict age and sour severity" 
E 



50 ANDREW MARVELL. 

of his life, or the unmeaning features {they, assuredly, can be 
no likeness) of his youth. But we want his capacity made visi- 
ble, his imagination, his love of the beautiful, his sway over 
earth, and hell, and the " boundless deep :" — And accordingly, 
even in this portrait, we miss, we must confess, somewhat of that 
lofty aspect which penetrated the depths of Tartarus, and passed 
the blazing bounds of heaven ; as well as those looks accustomed 
to dwell on the first green freshness of paradise, and to repose 
with our first parents in the flower-inwoven shades and solitary 
haunts of Eden. 



No. 57. JOHN OGILBY. 

From a Picture by Fuller, in the Collection at Straioberry Hill. 

This writer seems to have chosen to be painted in character. We 
must say, that it is not at all to our taste. Ogilby was the trans- 
lator of Homer and Virgil, (his translations still keep their place 
on our shelves, though they are by no means excellent,) but why 
he should have elected to be painted like a shipwrecked sailor, 
with his hands crossed on his breast, his hair dishevelled, and 
with a back ground of storm and lightning, is utterly beyond our 
simple guess ; we will leave it to the speculation of the reader, 
and pass on to the next. 



No. 58. ANDREW MARVELL. 

From an original Picture, presented by his Nephew to the British Museum. 

Marvell was one of the truest men that ever stood up for the 
great cause of liberty. We do not know that a finer or more in- 
flexible spirit can be found either in our own or any foreign na- 



THOMAS STANLEY. 51 

tion. He was a politician, a wit, and a poet. He stood guard 
over the people's rights, with a firm hand, unseduced, and unter- 
rified. He lashed vice and folly with the whip of satire ; and 
pleased himself, and did honour to his friends, by recording his 
attachments in much delightful verse. His verses, indeed, flourish 
equally in the green places of England and the dykes of Holland ; 
among friends and enemies. He was the author of a certain 
phrase, (he is speaking of a lady having been tutored, 

" Under the destiny severe 
Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere,")— 

which we might almost suppose was the origin of that famous line 
of Lord Byron's, 

" The starry Galileo and his woes"— 

the same effort of the imagination being observable in both. 
Marvell's lines are sometimes cramped, and he is, like many 
others, too fond of conceits ; but he has many graceful, many 
piquant, and some very touching things in his poetry. The reader 
will recognise, in his open look and waving hair, it is to be hoped, 
something as well of the patriot as the poet. 



No. 59. THOMAS STAxNLEY. 

From a Picture by Sir Peter Lely, in the possession of George Stanley, Esq. 

Stanley has the look of an elegant intelligent man, and he was 
so. He wrote some verses ; but he is best known by his " His- 
tory of Philosophy''— a work, as far as it goes, of much research. 
It does not come down late enough for a modern, but it gives a 
copious account of the ancient philosophy, and has some pleasant 
translations (from Aristophanes and others, if we remember 
aright,) intermingled, and relieving the otherwise weighty cha- 
racter of the subject. 



52 LORD ROCHESTER. 

No. 60. THOMAS HOBBES. 

From a Picture by himself, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

Hobbes was an extraordinary man — not as a poet, but as a philo- 
sopher. We give up (as we have repeatedly given up in despair) 
his Iliad and his Odyssey ; but we cannot consent to yield up his 
pretensions as a strong and original thinker. Milton was secre- 
tary to Cromwell, and Hobbes to Lord Bacon — What a pair of 
masters and servants ! The former (the republican twain) fought 
their way through the world in arms, overturning despotism, and 
planting independence on the soil of a free land ; the others broke 
down the strong hold of folly, and dissipated the cloudy supersti- 
tions of science, letting in the illuminations of their great intel- 
lects upon the world, for the benefit of the times to come. — The 
portrait of Hobbes has a knit brow and steadfast piercing eye, like 
that which should belong to an inquirer ; and his white hair and 
plain garments are in unison with the unaffected wisdom ascribed 
to the " philosopher of Malmesbury." Hobbes was more of a 
metaphysician, as his master (Bacon) was more of a scientific 
man ; but they were both eminent philosophers. The one has 
deservedly obtained fame ; and the other has earned it. 



No. 61. LORD ROCHESTER. 

From a Picture by Sir Peter Lely, in the Collection of Sir James Bland Burgess, 
Bart. 

This notorious personage wears the aspect of a petit maitre. He 
is painted in a wig and armour, but he becomes only the first. It 
is a little singular, perhaps, that Rochester has neither the look 
of a libertine nor a victor, though he was both. He was, indeed, 
a witty and spirited adventurer in the world of intrigue. He 
overturned (besides the virtue of — we know not how many ladies 



SAMUEL BUTLER. 53 

of the virtuous court of King Charles the Second) that celebrated 
maxim of " Ex ni/dlo nihil Jit"— for he wrote a poem upon 
" Nothing," and made something considerable out of his subject. 
This is allowed him by the severest of his critics. There are some 
pretty facts touching my Lord of Rochester, recounted in the 
famous memoirs of the Chevalier Philibert de Grammont, writ by 
the witty Count Autoine Hamilton, and various anecdotes scattered 
among cotemporary publications ; but as we do not desire here to 
unveil the mysteries of a gallant's life, we forbear to do more than 
glance at them. Rochester was but little of a poet, notwithstand- 
ing his poem upon " Nothing>" 



No. 62. SAMUEL BUTLER. 

From a Picture by Sir Peter Lett/, in the Collection of Lord Kinnoul. 

What a shrewd, bold, jolly-looking portrait is this of Butler. 
He seems built up on a foundation as big as Babel or St. Paul's, 
and to rise till his head is hid in the vast cloud of hair with which 
the preposterous fashion of the times has crowned it. This is the 
parent of the " colonelling knight," reader; the celebrated his- 
torian of Hudibras. Does not his face bear fine testimony to 
the character of his wit ? It is full, free, merry, shrewd, and 
reminds one of the portraits of Fielding ; which, however, seem 
scarcely to contain such a body of humour, as lies half-hid in 
the more portly countenance of Butler. There is almost a mea- 
greness in the face of the author of Tom Jones ; but there is 
nothing of the sort in his works, which are still unequalled. 



54 ISAAC WALTON. 

No. 63. ISAAC WALTON. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Dr. Hawes. 

This is the gentle countenance of Isaac Walton, the angler, the 
biographer, the poet ; for he was all, in a degree ; though his 
principal character was that of " Piscator," in which he figures 
so advantageously in his own dialogues. There is a bland and 
venerable expression in his look, a fresh old age upon him, like 
that which of right belongs to the frequenter of brooks and mea- 
dows, and to those who live in the early sunshine. " Old 
Isaac Walton" — who haunted the river Lea, as constantly as the 
May-fly, and spent his rich evenings over trout and mild ale at 
Tottenham Cross, has recorded his sports, and laid down his pre- 
cepts, in as pleasant a book of dialogue as ever was written. He 
is truly a pastoral writer, (and, look at his pastoral air I) although 
he passed the greater part of his life in Fleet-street, and contented 
himself, for the most part, when he went abroad, with rambling 
within the circuit of about half-a-dozen miles from his home. 
Had he lived in these excellent times, our modern wits would 
have called him a cockney; and, we apprehend, he would have been 
tolerably indifferent about it, and would have set off, with his 
basket and rod, for the meadows of Essex, to listen to the milk- 
maid, or to throw his fly upon the trembling waters of his favorite 
Lea, as content and as happy as though he had never encountered 
so alarming a reproach. Walton was the biographer of Bishop 
Hooker, of Donne, and others, and seems to have lived through 
a long life in amity with the learned, the witty, and the good. 
His book has been much celebrated ; and, indeed, we wander 
through its pages with the same feeling that we should tread upon 
the dewy grass, or listen to the music of the running river : — 
we go home with him to his evening inn, with a dream of en- 



LORD ROSCOMMON. 55 

joyment in our brain, that is not to be disturbed by the tu- 
mult of the smoky world around us, nor diminished by the con- 
sciousness that we ourselves are cast out of the pale of pastoral 
enjoyments for ever. 



No. 64. JOHN OLDHAM. 

From an original Picture in the Collection at Strawberry-hill. 

The reader has probably heard of the " remains" of Mr. Tho- 
mas Oldham. This is the likeness of the author. It is a fine 
and simple portrait. The plain dress, natural hair, and unaffected 
look, are altogether becoming. They are even more : they are 
striking merely from their simplicity ; for there is not a great deal 
of thought in the aspect, and but little, it must be confessed, of 
the poet's madness in the eye. We look on the portrait as we 
would upon a green field, where there is little to stimulate the 
feeling and nothing to distract the attention, though all is graceful 
and full of delightful repose. 



No. 65. LORD ROSCOMMON. 

From a Picture by Carlo Maratti, in the Collection of Lord Spencer. 

It required all our faith in the painter to believe that this epicene 
looking person was a man : but he was, and, moreover, the first 
eulogizerof Milton. He was the author of the Essay (in rhyme) on 
Translated Verse, in which he has once or twice thrown out some 
epigrammatic periods that might have passed for those of Pope. 
Generally speaking, however, Lord Roscommon is decidedly in- 
ferior to that celebrated writer. His portrait is affected. The 
regular parting of the hair, the cloak fastened by a brooch, so as to 
look picturesque, the compressed mouth, and important glance, 



56 ANNE K1LLIGREW. 

offend us. He might have passed for a mad prophetess had he 
heen a little more feminine, or for an Irish bard, had he had more 
of " the man." 



No. 66. THOMAS OTWAY. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Thomas Healey Prentice, Esq. 

We do not recognize the author either of Pierre or Monimia in 
this head. It wants tenderness and fire, and in truth, by its some- 
what heavy look, disappoints us. Nevertheless, the engraver has 
done his best in honour of the author of " Venice Preserved," and 
we must put up with an excellent engraving in room of the por- 
trait of a handsome poet. The collector of prints will, per- 
haps, not object to such an exchange. For ourselves, we should 
have been glad of an excuse to say something more on this sub- 
ject ; but the face of the poet forbids it. 



No. 67. ANNE KILLIGREW. 

From a Miniature of Lely, in the possession of Mr. Winstanley. 

This lady, who has been immortalized by Dryden, as the mis- 
tress of poetry, painting, and music, is the next that offers her- 
self for our approbation. Her face is petite, graceful, and a little 
affected ; and there is almost too much particularity about her 
dress for the portrait of a Sappho ; but this was probably the 
fault of the artist. We are too gallant to try this lady's verses by 
the white heat of criticism. It is enough that she was a pretty and 
accomplished woman — was celebrated by one of our most cele- 
brated writers — called 

" The youngest daughter of the skies" — 
and, above all, that she forms a very graceful addition to our por- 
traits of the English poets. 



CHARLES COTTON. 57 

No. 68. EDMUND WALLER. 

From a Picture by Jansen, in the Collection of the Rev. Edward Waller. 

The upper part of the face of Waller has an elegant and mild 
expression, but the lower part is not good. The whole gives us 
the idea of a timid mind. There is an uncertain character about 
the eye, and a mean look about the mouth, which are not the 
usual marks of a poet. Neither was Waller a high poet. He 
has been called by some person (and since that, followed by fifty 
others) the " refiner" of English verse ! He was a refiner, with a 
vengeance. He wrote later than Milton, and wrote differently, 
as every body knows : — but that his verse had a tithe of the re- 
finement of Milton, or a hundredth part of his poetry, would be 
utterly new to us, who do not respect things because of their no- 
velty only. His little song, however, of " Go, lovely rose," is 
entirely graceful. 



No. 69. CHARLES COTTON. 

From a Picture by Lely, in the possession of John Beresford, Esq. 

It is unlucky for us that the likeness of Cotton should not have 
been different. The translator of Montaigne, the author of the Voy- 
age to Irelaud, and other very delightful poems, should have lived 
at a different period : for the French fashions have been too much 
for him. With the exception of a little quickness in the eye, we 
can detect nothing of the witty or the humorous in the counte- 
nance of Cotton : in fact, he is absolutely overshadowed by the 
forest of hair, which weighs upon his head. We wonder how his 
wit (for he had a good deal) could possibly have endured to as- 
sume so preposterous a disguise. And we wonder more, that the 
friend and companion of Isaac Walton, who was accustomed to 



58 DR. HENRY MORE. 

take his stand in the wet spring mornings by the side of the 
rippling Dove, could have so utterly forgotten the green looks of 
the country and the simplicities of his old silver-haired friend, as 
to have enshrouded his own clever brain in such a mass of wig, 
or affronted the divinity of Nature by assuming a dress so foreign 
to her own. We can understand how a fop of the West, or a full- 
pursed citizen, may be ambitious to eclipse the half-starved hedge- 
rows which are powdered all over with dust in the neighbourhood 
of London ; but how a frequenter of meadows and rivers — how 
the friend of Isaac Walton the angler, and a man who was himself 
expert in the practice and learned in the theory of an art which 
sets at nought the aristocracy of dress — should have ventured into 
such a bushel of hair, is more than we can guess. We think that 
his own sense of the ridiculous must have interfered occasionally 
with this fashionable ambition. Can it be that his fishing-house, 
near the Dove, presented, amongst its rural ornaments and sylvan 
scenes, such a portrait as we have here ? Did he walk the wet 
meadows in this disguise ? Did he hear the milkmaid's song, and 
the carolling of the sky-lark (the " lyrique lark") through this 
hedge of hair ? Or did he put off these austerities of fashion (if 
we may so term them) and slip his town skin, like a snake, when 
he went into the clear air of Derbyshire with his friend " Piscator," 
and angled, and mused, and rhymed, and twisted flies, and wrote 
dialogues, and talked over his morning's sport like a true brother 
of the rod and the angle ? — We hope so, for the sake of the sports- 
man's character. 



No. 70. DR. HENRY MORE. 

From a scarce Print by Loggan, prefixed to his Poetical Works. 

This writer — who, by the way, very strongly resembles a celebrated 
living poet, (Mr. Wordsworth,) has a fine, stern, and contempla- 



THOMAS FLATMAN. 59 

tive look. He was addicted to metaphysics, and endeavoured to 
tame that harsh spirit down to the music of verse, and succeeded — 
indifferently. Leaving his poetry, which is certainly not very ex- 
cellent, we may admire his striking and thoughtful countenance, 
and his capacious brow, in which the organ of " causation" is 
so evident. Dr. More looks better adapted for a reasoner than 
for a poet ; though we scarcely know why we should assert this, 
seeing that his living likeness, with no ordinary share of the rea- 
soning power, has a proud and decided claim to the laurel. 



No. 71. THOMAS FLATMAN. 

From a Drawing by Sir Peter Lely, in the possession of the Publisher. 

Thomas Flatman — whose exceedingly picturesque and inter- 
esting portrait follows — aimed at reconciling the sister muses, and 
wielded both the pencil and the pen. His drawings are said to 
have been much better than his poems ; and we can readily be- 
lieve it. His verse reminds us occasionally of Herrick's ; but it is 
less sparkling and ingenious, and indeed inferior on the whole. — 
From his appearance, he ought to have been a better poet. His 
languid and almost tender look, his waviug hair and graceful 
though somewhat affected dress, might well have belonged to 
an amorist ; and we can easily fancy him tuning his voice to 
serenade or song, or inditing an elegy full of music and pathos, 
rivalling the passionate melody of Sappho, or the Dorian lament 
of the tender Bion. It is a little unfortunate that this was not the 
case. Flatman never did justice (in verse) to his personal ap- 
pearance ; but dealt out his savings in a moderate volume, which 
posterity has almost utterly neglected. But, where are his paint- 
ings ? — Alas, that his virtues should be written in water, and his 
follies in brass ! 



60 NATHANIEL LEE. 

No. 72. APHRA BEHN. 

From a Picture by Mary Beale, in the Collection of the Marquis of Buckingham. 

This lady, with a singular name, but elegant person, had in 
her life-time to encounter the caprices of fortune. She is well 
known as a writer, as well probably from the singularity of her 
names as from any other circumstance ; for her pieces are now 
not read. She was the wife of a merchant ; was afterwards em- 
ployed by the government of the period, in obtaining information 
from the continent ; was duly rewarded with neglect, and re- 
duced to the necessity of resorting both to her pen and her person 
for subsistence. This is but a lamentable close to an authoress's 
life ; and we fear that the circumstance of her being able to square 
some of her verses to suit the " free" state of her fallen fortunes, 
could have afforded her but slender consolation for the loss of 
either riches or respect. 



No. 73. NATHANIEL LEE. 

From an original Drawing formerly in the Collection of the late 
J. P. Kemble, Esq. 

What a fine staring head of Lee is this — " Nat Lee !" What a bold 
front he has, and a wild eye, as mad as March ! He dwelt in a 
tempest of words, and tossed the ten syllables from his quill with 
as much fury as Pindar himself. No image was too great for 
him, no words too big. He could out-roar the ocean, and pull 
down the raging thunder. His verse is full-blown, and distorted ; 
and his images, built up to the clouds and out of architectural 
proportions, seem ready to topple upon our heads as we gaze at 
them. Notwithstanding all this, Lee had great power and merit. 



THOMAS SHADWELL. 61 

We are too apt to class him with Pistol, and cry down his plays 
as a mere waste of words. They possess, on the contrary, great 
character, great spirit, and occasionally great pathos. Were they 
weeded of their rank and turgid common places, and the healthy 
laurel left to grow alone, Lee would surprise many of his inferiors 
who now take upon themselves to condemn him. His tragedies 
are, beyond comparison, better than those of Dryden, or indeed 
any of his cotemporaries. We except the play of ' Venice Preserv- 
ed' alone. Lee was unhappily subject to insanity ; and his malady 
is evident in the very striking likeness which we have luckily had 
it in our power to make public. 



No. 74. THOMAS SHADWELL. 

From a scarce print by W. Faithorne. 

We cannot detect ourselves, even after a very strict investigation, 
envying either the person or the reputation of Mr. Thomas 
Shadwell. He was crowned with the bays — i. e. he was poet- 
laureat to our old Roman-nosed friend the Prince of Orange, 
afterwards King William the Third ; and his verse might perhaps 
have sufficed for the taste of a Batavian monarch. Nevertheless, and 
maugre his fine cravat and jewelled brooch, and his aspiring wig 
which runs upwards like a pyramid and comes flowing down over 
his shoulders, with a prodigality which nothing can extenuate, — 
the poetry of Shadwell is positively bad, even for the time. He is 
said to have been a wit, and to have spoken better than he wrote. 
This might well have been. In his latter character (as a writer) 
he entitled himself to Dryden's notice ; and now figures immor- 
tally as "Mac Flecnoe." 



62 JOHN DRYDEN. 

No. 75. JOHN DRYDEN. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 

Wis unhesitatingly offer this portrait of Dryden, as superior to 

any extant. The original picture is in possession of the poet's 
celebrated editor, Sir Walter Scott, and has been engraved from 
it by his permission. If the reader will compare it with the other 
likenesses of Dryden, more particularly with reference to the 
character contained in it, he will he at ouce aware of its exceed- 
ing superiority. The eye is full of observation : the coarser part 
of Dryden's mind may be seen in the animal character of the 
mouth ; and the whole forms, as will readily be allowed, an un- 
commonly striking picture. The dress is flowing, rich, and grace- 
ful, and even the artihcial curls, which crown the poet's brows 
instead of laurel, hare been tortured into no inconsiderable ele- 
gance. Dryden was a fine prose writer, and a magnificent satirist : 
his lines go floating onward, and sounding like the sea, grand, 
sweeping, and regular : he had a great grasp, if we may so say, 
over language, and flung his anathemas about, as fiercely and 
freely as though he had sate in the papal chair. But his style of 
poetry was not of the highest order, although excellent and pos- 
sibly unequalled in its way. He was the Juvenal of his country, 
but not the Homer, the Virgil, the Dante, the Ariosto, or even 
the Catullus. He may be considered as better than some of these, 
perhaps, by a few; but they must be few indeed who can rank 
him, in his own country, with the four great spirits who preceded 
him, with Chaucer or Spenser, Shakspeare or Milton ; or who 
can resist the divine evidence of the two last, claiming to belong 
to another and a loftier sphere than that in which Dryden and the 
satirists dwell, We know that there are high authorities in favour 
of Pope and Dryden, 'and they were, in truth, men of whom 



CHARLES SACKVILLE. 63 

their country may be proud,) but there is as much distinction be- 
tween them and others, as there is between the task of correcting 
the follies of mankind and lifting their spirits to the stars. 



No. 76. SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

This worthy, who is reported to have passed a licentious youth 
and a patriotic old age, does not, as the reader will see, offer any 
personal contradiction to at least one part of his character. He 
looks like a Sir John Brute, — a dark and vulgar rake, and there 
is a low cunning about his eye, which may, perhaps, be indicative 
of the wit, which he has the reputation of having possessed. 
There is, however, but little of that quality in his verses. The 
only good things that we know, concerning this writer, are a 
joke which he made when the playhouse fell in during the time 
that his play was in the ^ct of being performed ; and the fact of 
his having contributed to drive from a throne which he had dis- 
honoured, the last of the race of Stuart. 



No. 77. CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET. 

From a Picture by Kneller, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

Nothing can be more rich or elegant than the morning gown of 
the Earl of Dorset : it looks fresh from the Persian looms. But 
who would recognize in the full, heavy, chubby face of the peer, 
the descendant of the famous Lord Buckhurst ? The family fea- 
tures seem to have degenerated beyond all reasonable computation. 
Nevertheless, this lord was a licentious gallant in his youth ; was 
the companion of Sedley and Rochester ; joined the friends of com- 



64 GEORGE STEPNEY. 

mon sense iu expatriating our worthy King James the Second; 
wrote the celebrated song of " To all you ladies now at land;" 
and composed divers little pieces in verse, which are sometimes 
pointed and often pleasant. So that, after all, we may be de- 
ceived in a head as well as in other things. We must not be un- 
derstood to speak iu disparagement of this portrait, for, in defiance 
of the want of poetry iu the countenance, it still forms a very rich 
and picturesque engraving. 



No. 7S. GEORGE STEPNEY. 

From a Picture by Kneller, in the Collection of William Baker, Esq. 

Our nest friend, George Stepney, should never have meddled with 
the Muses ; but should have kept to his uegociatings and embassies, 
wherein he might probably have gained — and perhaps did gain, for 
we are not very learned in his biography— credit and honour. 
This is one of those gentlemen who have been admitted by cour- 
tesy rather than right to a place among the poets of England. 
There is nothing poetical or flowing in the character of his por- 
trait. The face has a dull, decided look; the skin is as dark 
as a blacksmith's ; the gown, though somewhat rich, is all in 
angles ; and the wig, and indeed the entire likeness, wear a cast- 
iron appearance, which not even poetic heat could have fused into 
absolute grace. To what station in the " Heaven of Fame" Mr. 
G. Stepney has been preferred, we know not : but as (we suppose) 
Milton and the spirits of power lie slumbering in the eye of Jove, 
and Shakspeare near Phoebus himself; as Catullus and Ovid are 
with Venus, and the plagiarists with the rogue-eyed Mercury; so 
Mr. Stepney, we conclude, has been seut by Minos, (that Sir 
Richard Birnie of the shades,) upon the strength of his looks, to 
hard labour at the foree of Vulcan. 



WILLIAM WALSH. 65 

No. 79. JOHN PHILLIP^. 

From an original Picture, in the Collection of the Earl of Har court. 

This is the man who celebrated cider and tobacco in verse, and 
lifted up to temporary fame the " splendid shilling." He was 
deemed, in his time, we believe, no despicable imitator of Milton. 
At present, we do not trouble ourselves with such comparisons. 
Phillips's Shilling is left to itself as a coin out of date and no 
longer current ; the author's reputation, and his once celebrated 
poem, live in our minds rather as traditions, than as things re- 
corded, which any and every reader may peruse if he will. 
Phillips, in short, is not read, but talked of, as the author of " The 
Splendid Shilling." His poem of " Cider" is well enough in its 
way, as are also his verses on "Tobacco," though they and all 
others must yield the palm to Mr. Charles Lamb's delightful 
rhymes on the same subject. 

Brother of Bacchus, later born, 
The old world was sure forlorn 
Wanting thee" 

he sings, and goes on praising and abusing the herb of the " Oro- 
noque," with all the caprice of a lover and the spirit of a poet 
and a wit. 



No. 80. WILLIAM WALSH. 

From an original Picture, in the Collection of Colonel Henry Bromley. 

We must leave Mr. William Walsh to ingratiate himself with 
the reader, in the best manner he can. We have really nothing 
to say for him — or against him. We are in the predicament of a 
friend of ours who once cut an indifferent joke for the first time in 

F 



66 WILLIAM WYCHERLEY. 

his life; whereupon a notorious wag who was present, observed in 
an encouraging tone, "Ah, indeed, very well, very well: Ben 
Jonson has said worse things, — and better." What a desperate 
postscript is this to a letter of compliment ! 



No. 81. WILLIAM WYCHERLEY. 

From an original Picture, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

This is a fine hold head of a bold and fine writer. Wycherley 
was the patriarch of modern comedy. His characters (and in 
them his strength lies) have been modelled and re-modelled a 
dozen times. Our most brilliant wits have not disdained to bor- 
row from him : for even Congreve and Vanbrugh (and others) 
are his debtors. Wycherley's comedy is strong and masculine. 
His dramatis personse are not sketchy, shadowy phantoms, who 
are lost in the dazzle of the wit, or the vapid insipidity of the 
dialogue ; but are full-sized men and women, distinctly and com- 
pletely drawn. There is a great body of comedy in his works ; 
and his " Plain Dealer" alone is sufficient to justify his claim to 
be considered a vigorous and original comic writer. In his youth 
he is said to have been very handsome, and to have attracted the 
admiration of women. In this portrait, however, we see him as 
he was in his age — with the look of a gentleman upon him, and a 
shrewd and observing character in his eye. The Widow Black- 
acre is there, and her son Jerry, and Novel, and Varnish and his 
exquisite helpmate, and Hoyden, and the blunt and rugged Manly, 
who returns from overcoming the rebellious billows and the un- 
certain winds, to be conquered in his turn, and harassed by the 
fickleness of a jilt, and the exemplary perfidy of a fashionable 
friend. Mr. and Mrs. Varnish must be dead, we apprehend, by 



THOMAS PARNELL. 67 

this time ; but they have left a large and thriving progeny behind 
them, which will endure as long as cheating smiles and hollow 
sayings shall retain their value ; as long as there shall be watchful 
knavery in quest of plunder, or confiding honesty for its prey, or 
a polished scoundrel to lie away the life of the absent, or an un- 
principled woman to be won. 



No. 82. THOMAS PARNELL. 

From an original Picture, in the possession of Sir George Parnell. 

Although we do not recognize any lofty marks of genius, either 
in the poetry or the portrait of Parnell, we may give him credit 
for harmonious ease, and placidity if not depth of manner. He 
was an unassuming moral writer of verse ; and (notwithstanding 
some feeble lines which it contains) his "Hermit" still lives 
in the memory, like one of the bright summer evenings or sun- 
shine holidays which gilded the gloom of our boyhood. We will 
not read it with our critical spectacles on, lest we should de- 
tect the flaws of which we are now happily ignorant ; — but let it 
remain ! — like the other dreams and wonders of childhood, like the 
splendours of oriental fable, or the song of the thrush and the 
nightingale to the stranger in distant lands, — a glory of the ima- 
gination, an hallucination of the mind, to be coveted and not de- 
stroyed. We would not, for much that could be offered, give up 
these things to the rapacious grasp of the thing that is deified as 
" Common Sense :" — But, so long as the burs and thistles of the 
every-day world are liable to harm us, we would fain, from mere 
wisdom, keep one place secure and holy, which we can flee to as 



68 NICHOLAS ROWE. 

a refuge from all sorrow, and, laying ourselves down beneath de- 
lectable mountains and Arcadian skies, refresh ourselves with the 
ever-sweet waters of enchantment. 



No. 83. NICHOLAS ROWE. 

From a Picture, by Kneller, in t?ie Collection of the Earl of Harcourt. 

We have a great objection to Mr. Nicholas Rowe. In the first 
place, he has had a far greater reputation than he deserved ; and 
in the second place, and more particularly, he was clearly guilty 
of a most unparalleled piece of knavery, in stealing the whole 
plot and character of Massinger's play of " The Fatal Dowry." 
He trimmed it up, and clipped it in some respects, and hammered 
it out in others, and tamed down the poetry to monotonous 
prosaic verse ; and, thus altered, he exhibited it to the world as 
his own, (without any acknowledgement, or reference to Massin- 
ger's name,) under the title of " The Fair Penitent." This ap- 
pears to us to be little better than swindling ; yet we are not 
aware that Rowe has met with much reprehension for doing this. 
In that age, indeed, Massinger was unknown, or nearly so ; and 
latterly the sin has, we suppose, been considered of so old a date 
as to have passed beyond the " legitimate " period of censure. 
We do not otherwise understand how this culprit has escaped. 
He was a literary thief, and should be arraigned in the court of 
the Muses, and lashed by the most stinging laurel rods that ever 
shot up on the harshest parts of Parnassus. Mrs. Oldfield was ac- 
customed to say, that " the best school she had ever known, was 
the hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies." — We suspect, 
from this anecdote, that Mrs. Oldfield, were she alive, would not 



SAMUEL GARTH. 69 

play the characters of Shakspeare to our satisfaction. Rowe's 
poetry was indifferent, and his tragedy bad. He is valued, at 
present, we believe, more as a translator than as an original 
writer. 



No. 84. SAMUEL GARTH. 

From an original Picture, in the College of Physicians. 

Doctor Garth, the friend of wits and a wit himself, the pleasant 
author of the "Dispensary," is next. He has immortalized the 
quarrels of quacks and physicians, and has exhibited in ludicrous 
detail the engagements as well of the guerillas as of the more re- 
gular corps, who shoot, under a cloud of Latin, their poisonous 
arrows at the human race. The "Dispensary" is an edifying 
poem. Could it be translated into the homely prose of all lan- 
guages, and carried about, as an antidote, to carnivals and revels, 
it would operate as a styptic to that current of eloquence with 
which the mountebanks of the continent still continue to over- 
whelm the faculties of their listeners, the clowns. In England, in- 
deed, those times are pretty nearly gone by ; but in Germany, and 
Spain, audltaly, this low loquacious roguery still nourishes. Garth's 
sharp jests would at least contribute to cut it down, like the pop- 
pies of Tarquin, to a level with the rustic intellect which it at pre- 
sent overtops. It was this author, we believe, who uttered that bold 
joke in the presence of the notorious Duchess of Marlborough, 
when she said (pressing the Duke to take some medicine) that 
" she would be hanged if it did not prove serviceable ;" — to which 
Garth replied, " Do take it, then, my lord ; for it must be of ser- 
vice, — in one way or other." This is as clever as the utter- 
ance of it was courageous : for the Dutchess had almost as much 
of the combatant in her as her lord. She was notorious, while he 
was famous. 



70 JOSEPH ADDISON. 

No. 85. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 

From an original Picture, in the Bodleian Gallery- 

This author, who has been by many persons confounded with the 
second Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, (who also, by the way, 
lived during the reign of Charles the Second) — is not the hero of 
" Cliveden's gay alcoves,'' nor the gallant who figures in " Peveril 
of the Peak," but the author of certain essays, now uot much 
valued, of some poems, and more particularly of the burlesque 
drama of the " Rehearsal." This last is his best work ; and it 
showed some boldness to attack Dryden himself, whose hostility 
was not to be considered trivial, whatever the rank of his enemy. 
It has been said by some wit, that Lord Byron is the only peer 
whose laurels have been large enough to hide his coronet ; and we 
see nothing in the verses of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, that 
stimulates us to deny this assertion. 



No. 86. JOSEPH ADDISON. 

From a Picture, by Jervas, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

We should have been glad to have detected some of the features 
of the Coverley family in this likeness of the celebrated Spectator, 
but we are unable to do so. He was the father of " Sir Roger," 
yet we do not perceive that there existed any resemblance between 
them . Even supposing that the knight was altogether a fiction , 
we should have expected to meet some of the traces of that hu- 
mour which is so gracefully scattered over his biography :— But 
Addison is here 

"neat, trimly drest, 
Fresh as a bridegroom," 

in short, merely the friend of lords and high commoners, and 
moving amongst them until, as it would seem, the points of wit 



THOMAS D'URFEY. 71 

or humour, which stood up from the surface of his character, 
were polished and worn away. There is a something twinkling 
in the eye which to a certain extent redeems the portrait : but we 
confess that we would rather have seen it more completely justi- 
fying its master's fame. Addison was an indifferent dramatist, 
and a bad poet ; but his humour was delicate and delightful. 



No. 87- MATTHEW PRIOR. 

From a Picture by Richardson, in the Collection of Lord Hardwicke. 

If this be a likeness of Prior, and we have the strongest reason 
to believe it quite authentic, it is undoubtedly the finest head that 
we have seen of that lively writer. It does not, indeed, coin- 
cide with our recollections of some of his verses ; but it is an ex- 
ceedingly striking portrait. It indicates the author of " The Nut 
Brown Maid," or perhaps the diplomatist, but scarcely the humor- 
ous fabler. Prior's stories are neatly and piquantly told. We do 
not see high poetry or romance in any of his verses, but we 
look for pleasant narrative, shi'ewdness, and comic spirit, — and 
we find them. We shall be. excused for recommending this por- 
trait to the particular notice of the reader, as a work of art, 
full of beauty and expression. 



No. 88. THOMAS D'URFEY. 

From an original Picture, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 
We never saw a human countenance which so entirely resembled 
a mask as this, and yet it is a strong resemblance of the author. 
" D'Urfey of the forlorn aspect," was fit to have lived at the courts 
of King Artaxominous, or the Prince of Brentford, or to have 
presided at the revels of Amoroso, King of (little) Britain. There 
never before, perhaps, was such a face inflicted upon an animal 



72 SIR JOHN VANBRUGH. 

with two legs ; and the unhappy proprietor of this physiognomy 
was so aware of this, that the present likeness was obtained only 
by stealth. It is a face for a knocker ; or a cornice ; or the 
top of a stick ; or a letter box (if the mouth were open) ; or a snuff- 
box (if it were less grave) ; or, were it more reasonably pro- 
portioned, it might perhaps be admitted to figure as one of those 
libels on Highlaudmen which are planted at the doors of tobacco- 
nists and snuff-shops as decoys to unwary (if there be any unwary) 
Scots. A wit in want of a butt, or the manager of a country com- 
pany whose clown was sick, or a man whose peas were daily dis- 
appearing in the sparrow season, would covet such a head ; but, 
we apprehend, no one else. It is like a satire upon human 
beauty, curious from its enormity. 



No. 89. SIR JOHN VANBRUGH. 

From a Picture by Kneller, in the Collection of William Baker, Esq. 

We remember, as we were crossing Blackheath about two or three 
years ago, in one of the Kent coaches, that a travelling 'squire 
(our companion) poiuted out to us a pile of building which he 
called " Vanbrugh Fields," and said that he had been told that 
'twas built by "a Sir John Vanbrugh, a famous artist in his time." 
We assented to his reputation, and informed our informant that 
the knight had erected some of his works upon a better foundation 
even than Vanbrugh Fields : and we moreover, on an inquiry 
being made as to what these were, entrusted to the country gen- 
tleman questioning us the secret of Sir John having constructed 
(besides houses) certain comedies, which had entitled him to the 
admiration of the literary world. " Ha, indeed ! you don't say 
so ?" rejoined our friend ; on which we asserted that we did say 
so, and that we would maintain it. — And we say so still ; for not- 
withstanding the buildings of Vanbrugh, and the epigram (or 



WILLIAM CONGREVE. 73 

epitaph) upon him, and notwithstanding that the painter has 
chosen to place the compasses in his hand, as though to fix him 
to one profession, we think that the order of his architecture will 
become obsolete before his language, and that his buildings will 
shake to their foundation, before his humour and wit will give 
way. Vanbrugh was the third writer of modern comedy — at 
least, ,he and Farquhar were on the third step together — there 
being only Wycherley and Congreve, of that brilliant faction, de- 
cidedly above, him. The dramatist looks like a gentleman in this 
engraving ; but whether he has more of the poet or the architect 
in his face, we leave to the opinion of the reader. 



No. 90. WILLIAM CONGREVE. 

From an original Picture in the possession of the Publisher. 

This face, with its fine-cut features, is full of gentility. It is 
almost too finished and too delicate for humour ; and accordingly 
we find that Congreve, though, perhaps, the most brilliant wit in 
the whole circle of the drama, (we omit Shakspeare,) had not 
much notion of humour or character. He was a writer of great 
power in a particular way : i. e. he was a great master of fanciful 
wit, of pointed antithesis, and of dazzling repartee. He had, if 
we may be allowed the expression, more quickness than force of 
intellect. He struck smartly and cut keenly, but he had no grasp 
over his characters. They are prodigiously inferior, as may be 
supposed, to Shakspeare's ; nor are they equal to those of Wycher- 
ley, or even of Farquhar. But the flashing of his wit is splendid 
and incessant. It is like the summer lightning, only not harm- 
less. The power of Congreve was over words — or, we should 
say, images, (for he was not a punster,) rather than over 
persons : we recollect his sayings while we forget his charac- 



74 ELIJAH FENTON. 

ters. Foresight and the Old Bachelor are almost the only two 
people who are engraven, at full length, on our memory. — It is 
a curious fact, that Congreve should have said to Voltaire (who 
requested to be introduced to him) that " he wished to be visited 
as a gentleman, and not as an author." He, who could lash so 
smartly the empty humming gentility of his cotemporaries, should 
surely have known better. The reply of the French wit — that he 
should not have troubled him at all had he not been an author — 
was richly merited by the weakness of our countryman's avowal. 
But, let us forget his faults, and think only of his fame. There 
are many persons who have done sillier things than he, but none 
who have uttered more witty sayings. It is a bad symptom of the 
intellect of this age, we think, whatever may be said of its mora- 
lity, that the large farces of our cotemporaries should be liked, 
and the humble dialogue of the last age upheld, in preference — 
for it really is so — to the dazzling and airy wit of Congreve, and 
the matchless comedy of Shakspeare himself. 



No. 91. ELIJAH FENTON. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Thomas Fenton, Esq. 

The appearance of Fenton is unprepossessing. He has a heavy 
look, yet obtrusive, and full of pretence ; such as might have be- 
come a pedagogue, (he was originally a schoolmaster,) but is 
scarcely indicative of the " divine afflatus." This writer is prin- 
cipally known by his tragedy of " Mariamne." He also assisted 
Pope in translating some books of Homer (we believe, of the 
Odyssey,) wrote a few small poems, drank two bottles of wine a 
day, and got a precarious living by depending upon some literary 
or political patron. 



BARTON BOOTH. 75 

No. 92. JOHN GAY. 

From a Picture by Dahl, in the Collection of the Dutchess of Dorset. 

This poet has a sharp eye, full of observation, and a determined 
mouth. His dress is plain, and his cap is unadorned, and looks 
like a thistle : he might have written under it the Scotch motto 
(" Nemo me impune lacessit") — for he was a smart and lively- 
fabler, and could " point a moral," and trim the luxuriant folly 
of high and low life, as any reader of the " Beggar's Opera" can 
testify. That drama, indeed, is his great performance. It is full 
of wit and satire, and many of the songs are as sweet and soothing 
as a dream. Gay's pastorals are pleasant in parts, and his 
" Black-eyed Susan," and " The Hare with many Friends," in 
former times carried (with his opera) his popularity to an extent 
that has scarcely been surpassed in the literature of this or any 
other country. He is now in less request. His Fables have given 
way to more piquant things ; his " Black-eyed Susan" has gone 
out of fashion with the sea- service ; and his " Beggar's Opera" 
is condemned as vulgar. Whether all this be right or not, we will 
not undertake to determine. 



No. 93. BARTON BOOTH. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of Charles Mathews, Esq. 

Booth was, in his time, a celebrated tragic actor. He ran away 
from the famous right hand of Dr. Busby, (of Westminster 
school,) and enlisted in ths theatrical corps, where he became 
known to Betterton, and played for the first time in London, in 
Fletcher's tragedy of " Valentinian." He translated several odes 
of Horace, and wrote the masque of " Dido and Eneas." Cibber 
says, that " the masterpiece of Booth was Othello ;" and this 
alone gives us a high idea of his talent. He owed, however, his 
highest advancement, it seems, to Addison's " Cato," in which he 



76 WILLIAM SOMERVILE. 

quite captivated the town. His biographer gives him an amiable 
character, which his countenance fully confirms. It is pleasant, 
and like that of a gentleman. 



No. 94. THOMAS TICKELL. 

From an original Picture by Kneller, in the Hall of Queen's College, Oxford. 

This is but a poor countenance for Tickell, the friend of Addi- 
son. It is gentle, indeed, but full of timidity, with a petit mouth 
and a lack-lustre eye. Not much can be said of (or for) his 
verses. His elegy has been admired ; but we cannot detect any- 
thing in it beyond the mild common-place which is usually seen in 
that kind of poem. The best lines are — ■ 

" What new employments please the unbody'd mind ? 
A winged virtue, through the eternal sky, 
From world to world unwearied does he fly ?" 

But there is nothing else to challenge the attention. 



No. 95. WILLIAM SOMERVILE. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Christopher Wren, Esq. 

Somervile has a bluff important look, and a somewhat shrewd 
eye. He is said to have been, like Nimrod, a great hunter ; and 
indeed he has celebrated the sports of the field in his long and 
well-known poem of the "Chase." We never could account for the. 
great popularity of that work of Somervile, seeing that we may 
not reckon many fox -hunters among our literati, and that but few 
others would feel tempted to read it. We ourselves have assured- 
ly once achieved the task ; but we cannot recommend it very 
strongly to the reader, though it may lighten the weight of a rainy 
day in the country. 



ALEXANDER POPE. 77 

No. 96. ALEXANDER POPE. 

From a Picture by Hudson in the Collection of the Duke of Buckingham. 

We esteem this portrait as one of the very finest in our collection. 
Every line and feature of the face are pregnant with meaning. It is 
like the aspect of Voltaire, shrewd, sensitive, satiric, and observing; 
butithas a finer expression about the eye, which is large and serious, 
and capable, as it seems, as much of the romance of poetry as the pi- 
quancy of rhyme. Pope was, in his way, a delightful writer. His 
" Rape of the Lock," and some of his Epistles, are unequalled; but he 
wanted, if we may venture to say so, the loftier spirit of imagination. 
His tendency was to diminish, rather than to elevate ; and accord- 
ingly, in his serious writings, finding little in his own mind to raise 
or enlarge, he often went to the common-places of poetry for his 
images : but in his familiar, and more particularly in his wittiest 
writings, he is at once piquant, original, and refined. Dryden was 
stronger, but coarser ; his cuts, although perhaps as deep, were 
not so fine as those of Pope. The former seems better adapted to 
correct the vices of mankind, and the latter to pare down the fol- 
lies of individuals. There is a sterner kind of satire about Dryden. 
His characters come out of the furnace of his indignation, hideous, 
vicious, and mishapen : but under the laughing or biting wit of 
Pope, writhe lords, and critics, and poets, all in their own natural 
shape, and encumbered only with Midas ears. The victims of 
the one, in short, we hate ; and of the other we scorn. Oc- 
casionally there may be a closer resemblance between the two, 
and the above distinction may not hold ; but, generally speaking, 
there was as much difference between the styles of the two poets 
and their weapons of attack, as there existed iu their several con- 
stitutions. The bodily infirmities of Pope had, as may be sup- 
posed, a decided effect upon his poetry. Had he lived more in 



78 JONATHAN SWIFT. 

the world and on the town, we might have had his satires, his 
translations, his epigrams, but scarcely the delightful history of 
Belinda and her " lock." As some confirmation of this, look only 
at the manner in which Dryden and Swift wrote on the subject 
of women ; and then at the want of sensuality apparent in the 
Rape of the Lock, and the airy wit which flutters throughout the 
whole of that exquisite story. 



No. 97. JONATHAN SWIFT. 

From an original Picture in the Collection of the Earl of Besborough. 

This is a fine head of the satirical dean What an undaunted eye 
he has ; and what a face, full of shrewd humour ! There is a 
look in this portrait, not unlike the glance of Sir Walter Scott, 
except that Swift has more fiert£, with less, perhaps, of the cu- 
rious or inquiring character than what is distinguishable in the 
living novelist. We think we can trace the features of " Flimnap" 
and "Glumdalclitch," and all the adventures of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, 
in the single square inch (the face) which now lies open before us. 
It is a fine and complete index to the twenty-four volumes of 
" Swift's Works," which we see in every library in London. No 
owner of those books should be without it. Here are the jokes, 
the rebusses, the fables, the voyages, the satires, the polite con- 
versation, the directions to the servants, the imitations, the epis- 
tles, the perverse humour, and all the quiddities which shine out 
like the lights of his renown ; and here, too, is the manly sense, 
the stout argument, the caustic and bitter spirit which animated, 
and have given perpetual life to his more serious labours. 
We are not sure that other traits might not also be found, con- 
firming certain events in his life, equally remarkable, although 
not so scrupulously recorded as his sentiments of his friends and 



JAMES THOMSON. 79 

enemies. We are unfeigned admirers of Swift's writings in gene- 
ral ; but his incessant hunting after place and pension, his cruel 
treatment of his female friends, his coarse ribaldry, and brutal 
malignity, are utterly indefeusible and disgusting. We have an 
utter aversion to his character and conduct; nor do we choose to 
place our approbation on record, without some intimation that we 
are fully sensible of his glaring defects. 



No. 98. JAMES THOMSON. 

From an original Picture in the lid of the Poefs Snuff-Box, in the possession 
of Mrs. Hamilton. 

This full face in a medallion represents the poet Thomson. It 
is a personification of the Castle of Indolence, without its ro- 
mance. It is the face of the lazy eater of peaches, who ate 
that blushing fruit with his hands in his pockets : it may even 
pass for the writer of Tancred and Sigismunda ; but not for the 
author of" The Seasons." This last, which is the most celebrated 
work of Thomson, contains, perhaps, finer passages than any other; 
but we look oftener, we confess, upon the Castle of Indolence, 
aud, as an entire poem, give it the preference to the more famous 
"Seasons." Thomson assuredly was a benefactor to poetry. His 
blank verse (though often swollen and heavy) has frequently fine 
passages, and good modulation ; and his fresh natural images must 
have been a great relief to the thirsty imaginations of the readers 
who lived amongst so much of the dust and rubbish of poetry fifty 
years ago. His " Castle of Indolence," which begins in the manner 
of Spenser, and proceeds in his own scarcely inferior style, is a rich 
piece of poetry. There is a fine indolent air about it, which tempts 
a sluggard into the midst of its bewildering stanzas, till he is lost 



80 DOCTOR WATTS. 

amongst silken couches and stately hangings, statues and pictures 
of all subjects aud colours, — 

" Whate'er Lorraine light toueh'd with softening hue, 
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew" — 

pillars of porphyry, and magnificent saloons, quiet lawns whereon 
the murmuring winds lay sleeping, placid lakes and dreamiug 
woods, the glittering glancing river which ran away in music, till 
the eye and ear were soothed to slumber ; and, in short, amongst all 
the wonders of enchantment which that fine magician, the poet, 
can conjure up at will from the inexhaustible caverns of his brain. 



No. 99. DOCTOR WATTS. 

From a Picture by Gainsborough, in Dr. Williams's Library. 

This is the head of, if not a fine poet, at least of a most sensi- 
ble, useful, and exemplary man. Dr. Watts is w r ell known 
amongst youthful readers, as the author of some popular books on 
education, and his " Logic" is, we believe, upheld at Oxford, in 
preference to the more elaborate and extensive work of Locke. 
Some of his hymns make an impressiou on us that we never lose. 
We have heard a witty friend of ours recite (with an emphasis on 
the second word) — 

" How doth the little busy bee," &c 

in a way to satisfy us that his industry might be traced with little 
trouble to the poem of Dr. Watts. Whether our friend's humour, 
his shrewdness, his fine talent for depicting the drolleries of our 
nature, may be ascribed to the same influence, we know not. The 
portrait here given of Watts wears a very intelligent character. 
The mouth is not pleasing, perhaps, but the eye makes rich amends 
for any small defect. 



GILBERT WEST. 81 

No. 100. AARON HILL. 

From a scarce Print by Hulsbergh. 

This writer has, it must be confessed, but petit features, and 
withal, a little foppery in his dress ; but he looks like a gentleman, 
and he was so. Indeed, he has the character of having been a kind, 
and also a spirited man in his conduct. His verse is perhaps more 
blameable. We do not admire his dramas ; but his verses, " writ- 
ten at Southampton," are pleasant, and look exceedingly like the 
original of Cowper's " Lines on his Mother's Picture." They 
are not quite so good as those of the modern poet : nevertheless, 
they do not suffer much in comparison, and this is no scanty 
praise. 



No. 101. GILBERT WEST. 

From an original Picture, in the Collection of Lord Lyttelton. 

Gilbert West, well kuown as the translator of Pindar, has a 
plain and unaffected, but not very intellectual look. He does not 
bear the marks upon him of having had close, converse with the 
Theban — the " learned Theban," — of having plunged into the mys- 
teries of dithyrambics, and lit his English torch at the Pythian's 
shrine. He is more like one of the Quakers (those republicans of 
religion) or a native of the enfranchised states across the Atlantic. 
He is as straight as a stick : and yet, with this rigid and unbending 
person, he passed through almost all professions. He was edu- 
cated for the church, went into the army, then turned politician, 
then wrote a tract on the " Resurrection," (for which he was 
made an LL.D.) and finally died treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. 

G 



82 COLLEY CIBBER. 

No. 102. COLLEY CIBBER. 

From a Picture by Grisoni, in the Collection of Charles Mathews, Esq: 

This fantastic, self-sufficient rogue is quite a model for a beau. 
He is beyond a beau ideal ; and looks as though he had been dip- 
ped (heel and all) into the very Helicon of foppery and fashion. 
This gentleman of the pinch of snuff aud a laced suit, is iny lord 
Foppington, whose vitals were " stapped" so frequently a century 
ago. He is the personification of a new suit of clothes and clean 
linen. He lives in immortal fashion, " ever young," — as pungent 
as the snuff he takes — as graceful as the cut of his velvet coat — as 
languid as a beau without stays, and as full of affectation as a lady's 
maid, or a milliner. Colley Cibber was an inimitable fop upon 
the stage, — and off. He was the hero of Farquhar,of Vanbrugh, 
and the rest ; and lifted up their exquisite frippery, till it hung 
flauntingly between earth and the skies. — There has never been a 
beau like Cibbsr upon the English stage. Lewis, though excellent 
in his way, was almost too mercurial for a fop : and the same may 
be said of our pleasant living actor, Jones. Farley, though amiable 
in Osric, and big with importance in French hair-dressers, is not 
on the highest grade. Liston does not represent the class of fops, 
but is a fop individual. Penley looks as though a good gust 
of wind would blow all the coxcomb out of him : his folly 
hangs about his person as loosely as the powder in his hair. Ellis- 
ton, a rich comedian, thrives better as the worm than the butterfly 
of fashion. He is admirable in Lackland, in Jeremy Diddler, in 
the Liar, and Tag, (forlornest of poets,) rather than in the airier 
follies of the last, or the dashing absurdities of the living age. 
Charles Kemble is inimitable in Benedick, in Falconbridge, in 
Charles Surface, in Mirabel, and in all the proud and spirited walks 



ALLAN RAMSAY. 83 

of comedy ; but we should not like to see him quit his fine hu- 
mour aud stinging wit, to endeavour to make us laugh either as 
Tom Shuffieton, or Lord Foppington. So that, after all, Cibber 
must be allowed to have worn the frippery of wit better than any 
of his successors. Let the reader look but for a moment at his 
exquisite portrait, or read his " Apology," and he will not won- 
der that it should be so. Foppery was born and engrafted in him, 
like the colour in the leaf. 



No. 103. ALLAN RAMSAY. 

From a Picture by AiJcman, in the Collection of Sir George Clerk, Bart. 

The English reader cannot of course appreciate the merits of 
Allan Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd." As a true picture of hum- 
ble pastoral life, we are content to believe it superior to the pasto- 
rals of our own language ; but we can see sufficiently through 
the mist of the Scotch dialogue to be quite certain that it is 
very inferior to several others in point of poetical composition. 
Ramsay did not live in the best times of poetry ; and it is no little 
praise, that he shares, with Thomson and a few others, the merit 
of having ventured upon truth and simplicity, at a time when they 
were proscribed through all the regions of poetry. The head of 
Ramsay, which is here given, is rather striking ; but it has little 
of a pastoral or a poetical look : it was painted, we suppose, after 
his residence at Castle-hill, in Edinburgh. In the dialogue 
between Peggy and Jenny, who persuades the former not to marry, 
there are some tender lines which even the Scotch cannot obscure. 
Peggy, who loves the gentle shepherd, is speaking : 

" Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife, 

When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife ; 

Gif I'm sae happy, I shall have delight 

To hear their little plaints, and keep them right. 



84 ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE. 

Wow, Jenny ! can there greater pleasure be, 

Than see sic wee tots toolying at your knee ; 

When a' they ettle at, their greatest wish 

Is to be made of, and obtain a kiss ? 

Can there be toil in tenting day and night 

The like of them, when love makes care delight ?" 

This is English (we hope) in its sentiments, however foreign 
the idiom may he. 



No. 104. SIR C. H. WILLIAMS. 

From a Picture hy R. Mengs, in the Collection of the Earl of Essex. 

This knight, who was formerly our Minister at the courts of 
Berlin and Petersburgh, is said to have borne only one " poetical 
blossom." Walpole said that " he was in flower only for one ode." 
This ode, we suppose, was the one entitled "Toa Great Number 
of Great Men, newly made ;" as it contains the passage about the 
" black funereal Finches," which Lord Orford quotes with satis- 
faction somewhere or other in his Letters or Memoirs. Sir C. H. 
Williams was a writer of Anacreontics, love-verses, and political 
rhymes. His portrait is not one of the most agreeable in our col- 
lection ; but if the reader will receive it as the likeness of a poli- 
tician instead of a poet, we may safely recommend it to his notice. 



No. 105. ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Mrs. Browne, 

This pleasant looking person, with the lively counteuance and 
comical eye, wrote, like several other of our wits, upon the virtues 
of tobacco. There is a humorous curve in his lip, as the reader will 
see, which might assist him to blow a pipe, perhaps, as well as 



LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. 85 

to praise it. We are sorry to say, however, that there is something 
on record, touching our author, which somewhat diminishes the 
value of his eulogies. It is said that he " never felt the merit of 
Milton, before hearing Sheridan pronounce his exordium." 

Browne's second imitation, (of Ambrose Phillips) where he 
addresses the 

" Little tube of mighty power, 
Charmer of an idle hour," 

is amusing, as well as his mimicry of Thomson, Swift, and Pope. 
He was a man of fortune and a senator. 



No. 106. LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. 

From an enamel Miniature, by Zink, in the possession of Charles CohnUe, Esq. 

This print is at once magnificent aud graceful. The richness of 
the silken dress, the wealthy turban , and oriental jacket, are of 
themselves a fine picture. There is a somewhat shrewd look about 
the eyes of the portrait, also, yet scarcely equal to the reputation 
of the original. Lady M. W. Montague was a lively and often a 
witty writer ; and we do not understand how it was that Horace 
Walpole, who himself wrote in a style not very dissimilar, should 
not have appreciated her letters. Perhaps, however, it was on 
this very account. " She was always a dirty little thing," says he. 
Is it to be believed that this phrase can apply to the gay and elegant 
instance of orientalism before us ? She looks rather like some 
amphibious Turk, some dark-eyed Fatima or Leila, who has lived 
half her days amidst the luxuries of baths, and walks " redolent" 
of perfumes, like Juue or the breathing Spring. 



86 WILLIAiM SHENSTONE. 

No. 107. JOHN BYROM. 

From a Sketch by Rasbotham, in the possession of the Publisher. 

We think that the artist who painted the portrait of this poet, in 
the ungainly attitude in which he is represented, must have been 
the most indiscreet person in the world, — except the sitter. 
Byrom was a common-place writer of pastoral poetry, which he 
manufactured after the following fashion : — 

" My lambkins around me would oftentimes play, 
And Phoebe and I were as joyful as they ; 
How pleasant their sporting, how happy their time, 
When Spring, Love, and Beauty were all in their prime." 

Is it possible, that these second-hand glimpses of the country 
(for we can scarcely suppose that the author ever saw a hedge be- 
yond Battersea) could ever have pleased the " reading public ?" 



No. 108. WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 

From an original Picture, in the possession of William Roscoe, Esq. 

The portrait and the pastorals of Shenstone are his worst eue- 
mies. We would rather that the reader should think of him after 
reading his delightful little poem of the " Schoolmistress," (a 
matchless thing in its way,) or after a pleasant evening enjoyed 
over his Essays. His ballad of " Jemmy Dawson," by means oi 
which, and his pastorals, he has obtained the principal part of 
his fame, possesses very little merit beyond the common run of 
ballads. Shenstone here looks what he really was ; namely, a sleek, 
comfortable, precise, gentleman of property. He appears dressed, 
as he used to be in his life-time, to receive company at the " Lea- 
sowes," and ready to introduce the affable and the ignorant to 



DR. YOUNG. 87 

all the leaden mysteries of his Olympus. He was a man for " gar- 
den gods " and inscriptions, and loved the theory of cottages and 
flowery plains, and 

"banks all furnished with bees ;" 

but his practice savoured more of gentility. He wrote of the de- 
lights of a pastoral life in the rooms of Bath and London, and met 
with his " Phyllis " at the Cheltenham Spa. 



No. 109. CHARLES CHURCHILL. 

From an original Picture, in the possession of Sir Richard Phillips. 

Churchill, the satirist, and the enemy of our fine English 
painter Hogarth, has the look of a butcher ; and, indeed, he cut 
up his enemies not as a dish fit for the gods, but mangled them 
after a very coarse and earthly fashion. Nevertheless, there is a 
good deal of nerve and bitterness in some of Churchill's anathe- 
mas, though his verses are but little read. The reader will not 
overlook the quick eye of the satirist in this portrait. We are 
afraid that we cannot direct him to any poetical part in his face. 



No. 110. DR. YOUNG. 

From a Picture, by Highmore, in the Hall of All Souls College. 

Although this is a good and characteristic portrait, it is not 
pleasant to dwell on. We do not like the countenance of Young. 
The small, shrewd, cunning eye, with the hand and glance some- 
what aside, have a worldly and unpoetical appearance. He looks 
like a full-blown dowager detailing a tea-table scandal. — This is 
the celebrated author of the " Night Thoughts," which every 



88 THOMAS GRAY. 

body has bought in his youth, and scarcely any body has read 
through. Young is also the author of various satires upon " Wo- 
men," (he looks fit for the task,) and of several tragedies, of which 
" The Revenge " still keeps possession of the stage. The charac- 
ter of " Zanga " in this play, had it been original, would have been 
striking enough ; but coming after Iago, it must be held in every 
sense of the word to be entitled to but a secondary reputation. 
The satires (on Women) have some piquant passages, but, gener- 
ally speaking, they are inferior to many others in the language. 



No. 111. MARK AKENSIDE. 

From a Picture, by Pond, in the Collection of Lord Heathfield. 

We have but little to observe upon this picture. The eye is indeed 
represented as looking upwards, but the portrait is scarcely an im- 
personation of the " Imagination," upon which the author has so 
pleasantly dilated. Akenside's Hymn to the Naiades contains 
some agreeable passages, and his Poem on the Imagination is en- 
titled to much praise. His verse, however, is not equal to Thom- 
son's, nor can it be said on the whole perhaps to surpass that of 
Young. It is decidedly inferior to most of Mr. Wordsworth's, and 
immeasurably below the grand cadences of Milton. 



No. 112. THOMAS GRAY. 

From a Picture, by Echardt, in the Collection at Strawberry Hill. 

There is not a poet in the whole poetical history of England, who, 
by the same means, ever attained such a reputation in his life-time 
or preserved it after his death, as Gray. He has been praised till 



JOHN CUNNINGHAM. 89 

we are fatigued with eulogy. Horace Walpole thought him a pro- 
founder man than Hume, and Miss Seward has placed him upon 
the clouds. There are no heights or depths which his fame has 
not reached, so warm has been the fancy of his admirers and so 
active the exertions of his friends. Dr. Johnson has been abused 
for underrating him, by persons who could read that learned bio- 
grapher's account of Milton without anger. In short, so much 
has been said of the author of " The Bard" and of " The Elegy 
in a Church Yard," that we shall not add to the heap of remark ; 
the more especially as our colder calculation of Gray's talent 
might probably be considered to have been written in an invidious 
spirit. Yet, we are not without our admiration of Gray. We like 
his letters, portions of his odes, parts of his " Elegy," (indeed the 
whole perhaps, in moderation,) but his Pindarics are not alto- 
gether to our taste. His poems are laboured and extremely wanting 
in originality, and are by no means rich in imagination. The por- 
trait has a neat, finical, affected look, smooth as " my lady's 
cheek ;" and his hair, his eyebrows, his dress, &c. are all tamed 
down to precise and polished order. There is certainly not much 
of the fine audacity of Pindar in this look of his imitator, Gray. 



No. 113. JOHN CUNNINGHAM. 

From a Drawing by Bewick, in the possession of Miss Hornby. 

The person of this author seems to claim some affinity to the 
meagre look of the miser, Elwes. He has a projecting face, a 
shallow crown, and a hat to fit, and looks altogether well fitted to 
keep watch over the sleeping gold, which that anomaly in human 
nature hoarded, with a care excelling even the profusion with 



90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

which he squandered it among the dicers and card players of our 
moral metropolis. Having glanced at Cunningham's person, we 
need not detain the reader with his poetry. 



Nc 114. GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON. 

From a Picture by West, in the Collection of Lord Lyttelton. 

This print will bring at once to the reader's memory, the portrait 
of the celebrated Lord Chesterfield. This is not a pleasant asso- 
ciation ; and therefore, in order to get rid of it, we must go back 
to our reading thirty years ago, when we used to dwell on the 
poetry of Lord Lyttelton, and sigh over his sorrows, and think 
that his " Lucy " was as peerless as his verse, and his groves and 
" shades of Hagley " more romantic than the green valleys of Ar- 
cady or the melancholy glades which ran through the forest 
of Arden. If time has dissipated these delusions a little, we ne- 
vertheless still cling with some pleasure to the noble author's 
laments, and cannot help fancying that we discover in the portrait 
before us, senatorial and political as it is, something of the sad 
and bereaved husband who beguiled us of our tears in boyhood. 



No. 115. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the Collection of the Dutchess of 
Dorset. 

Sir Joshua's portrait of Goldsmith, which this print has faith- 
fully copied, has always been esteemed an admirable likeness. 
No one can look upon it without being sensible of the fidelity of 
the engraver. There is great depth of colour in the print, (to 
speak technically,) and much of that serious sentiment which is 



DR. ARMSTRONG. 91 

so remarkable in the poetry of Goldsmith. We do not perceive 
much of his humour, but the restraint of sitting for his likeness 
would probably have in some measure erased that quality from 
the portrait; or perhaps Sir Joshua, who was a great master in 
those things, preferred the more serious expression of his friend. 
We unhesitatingly recommend this portrait as a fine work of art. 



No. 116. PAUL WHITEHEAD. 

From a Picture by Gainsborough, in the possession of Mrs. Morris. 

Paul Whitehead, to whom we have now the task of introducing 
the reader, has, it must be owned, but a heavy countenance, 
and a lack-lustre eye, which seems as it had never been washed in 
the bright waters of Castaly. His wig is carefully combed ; his 
ruffles are drawn down with precision ; he has a didactic fin- 
ger, and a look like an old gentleman who has the literary mania 
upon him, but whose laurel (if ever it had leaves) has grown 
bare, prosaic, and sapless. We would have wagered a trifle 
against this author's verses if we had never read them ; and this 
fact may be taken by the intelligent reader as no trifling evidence 
as to the authenticity of the portrait before him. 



No. 117. DR. ARMSTRONG. 

From a Miniature by Shelley, in the possession of the Publisher. 

" Doctor Armstrong's poem on Health is very well." — This is 
the report of Horatio Walpole. Nevertheless, it is, for a didactic 
poem, an agreeable poem ; and it is moreover the poem which has 
alone given fame to its author. Armstrong is almost entirely un- 



92 THOMAS PENROSE. 

known, except as to his poem on " Preserving Health." — The 
face before us has a cunning look. Walpole asserts that the original 
Doctor was proud: — "His pride is most disgusting," he says; 
aud adds, in a very pleasant unconscious way — " An author should 
either know or suppose, that there are in this enlightened country 
thousands of readers, who might perhaps write as well as himself 
on any topic — ( ! ! we deny this, on the part of both poets and 
physicians) — but, who at any rate may be superior judges, though 
they be too lazy to call their taste into active exertion" We al- 
most wonder that Walpole's vanity should get the better of his 
natural shrewdness so far as to induce him to let these sentences 
escape. For our own parts, we are glad of it, partly because it is 
a trait in the critic's character, and partly because we are quite 
sure that it relieved him from a fit of the spleen. 



No. 118. THOMAS PENROSE. 

From an original Picture, in the possession of Dr. Penrose. 

We understand that this is an excellent likeness. Nevertheless, it 
is not one of our best prints. It is not one of our bijoux, as Mr. 

(in Foote's farce) would say, who could praise all things 

from a cracked cup to a coronet. On the contrary, we are so full 
of our sincerity, that we beg the reader to observe that our friend 
Mr. Penrose has indubitable full cheeks — that he is corpulent 
beyond question — that he has a sleek look, and an indifferent wig, 
and a curl on each side of his head like a cannon. What can we 
say of his verses after such a minute and matter of fact descrip- 
tion ? — We must leave them to the generosity of the reader. 



DAVID GARRICK. 93 

No. 119. DAVID GARRICK. 

From a Picture by Gainsborough, in the Town Hall at Stratford-upon-Avon. 

This strange fellow has a shrewd comic look, reader — do you 
not agree with us ? — This was a man fit to play Ranger, A Del 
Drugger, and to keep the " table in a roar " — was he not ? — ay, at 
least as much as our posthumous friend in Hamlet. Garrick was 
beyond doubt a great actor, — greater, from all we can judge, how- 
ever, in comedy than tragedy. His features seem to have accom- 
modated themselves more readily to the turn of humour than to 
the throbs and agonies of tragic passion, and there is a quick 
flashing wit in his eye which could scarcely have been subdued, we 
should think, even by tears. Garrick failed in Othello, (Kean's 
masterpiece,) and that circumstance alone would prejudice us some- 
what against his tragic acting, inasmuch as we hold Othello to be 
a great test of a tragic actor's powers. If he cannot top that part, in 
which he must, of necessity, mix up so much of the grand and the 
familiar, the tender, the sad, and the passionate together, it must be 
considered to speak to a certain extent against him. Even Hamlet, 
which comprises perhaps as many shades of passion and humour, 
is less difficult, because the distinctions are more marked and de- 
cided than in the story of the Moor. Nevertheless, Garrick was a 
great and delightful actor. He cut down some of the flourishing 
follies of the stage, and did good to what our critics call " the his- 
trionic art." He was also something of an author, and altered 
some of the plays, and (we quote the advertisements) " by his 
judicious alterations rendered them worthy the approbation of the 
public." For ourselves, we still continue to read the originals. — The 
present engraving, although executed by our favourite Sharpe, is 
fleecy and unsatisfactory. We seem to look at the countenance of 
the author through a veil of muslin or a shower of rain. Nothing, 
however, can conceal that it is a fine, humorous, and character- 
tic portrait. 



94 DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

No. 120. HENRY BROOKE. 

From a Picture by his Nephew, Henry Brooke, in the possession of the 
Publisher. 

The author of Gustavus Vasa looks like an unaffected sensible 
man. Vet he deserted law for letters, and finally died in dis- 
tress and insanity. He was an honest partizan, we believe, in 
politics, and certainly a benevolent man in private life. His two 
best known works are, histories of "The Earl of Essex," and 
" Gustavus Vasa," — of which we prefer the latter, which con- 
tains some eloquence, at least, if it be not very eminent for its 
poetry. Neither should we (nor can we ever) forget his "Fool 
of Quality " — the delight of our play-hours, which was hoarded 
by our old schoolmaster in an old cupboard, together with Sir 
Charles Grandison, the Tatler, and five odd volumes of the Spec- 
tator, to be leut as a reward to the industrious and deserving. 
Although we did not entitle ourselves to many glimpses into these 
divine volumes, and in truth were given to other less literary 
recreations, we were not utterly without our claim to peruse them. 
And we reme nber well how we used to turn from Sir Charles 
Grandison aud Miss Harriet Byron, to the sad and passionate Cle- 
mentina, and from her, in turn, to the pleasant adventures of 
Mr. Henry Moreland (" the fool of quality,") and his tender ori- 
ental flower — the gentle and transformed Abenamin. 



No. 121. DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, late in the possession of Mrs. Piozzi. 

We are not hereto inquire into Doctor Johnson's qualifications 
as a critic, into his essays in prose, or his general wisdom. As a 
poet, it is no slander to say that he was not one of the highest 
order. His imitation of Juvenal, which is spirited, is decidedly 



WILLIAM WHITEHEAD. 95 

the best of his poetical compositions. His tragedy is tame and 
without a single dramatic qualification ; and his Life of Milton is 
a sad stain upon his fame. Yet he was, as men go, a great man, 
a shrewd man, quick in conversation, laborious, high spirited and 
benevolent. Shall we give up these things or forget them, be- 
cause he had some infirmities of temper, or some frailties of cri- 
ticism ? — Let us rather call to mind his spirited reply to Lord 
Chesterfield, his tenderness to his servant, his constant affection 
to his family, and the general tone of his writings, which almost 
universally tend to kindness and good feeling. He had the reason- 
ing faculty in very great perfection, and did not allow it to lie 
idle, as his biographer amply proves. He is said to have carried a 
poor maimed beggar on his back along Ludgate Hill and Fleet 
Street, in defiance of the jeers and contempt of idle passengers, 
and this is alone sufficient to compensate for a folio of faults. 
The portrait here given is engraved after Sir Joshua Reynolds, and 
represents the author in his age. It is an undoubted likeness. 



No. 122. WILLIAM WHITEHEAD. 

From a Picture by Wilson, in the Collection of Earl Harcourt. 

This is the head of William Whitehead, the poet laureat, and 
author of the dramas of " The Roman Father" and " Creusa." 
The Whiteheads (like the Wrongheads) were not a prepossessing 
family ; and, yet this writer had the reputation of having been 
handsome in his youth. He was an amiable and inoffensive man, 
and was on that account, we suppose, vilified by Churchill, who 
was the common slanderer of his time. Thefactof Garrick refusing 
to let one of Whitehead's plays be performed unless he would con- 
ceal his name, shows, at once, the paltry time-serving spirit of the 



96 RICHARD GLOVER. 

actor, and the weakness of the dramatist. In this likeness, White- 
head wears a heavy unintellectual countenance, and looks, indeed, 
almost like a candidate for Bedlam. 



No. 123. RICHARD GLOVER. 

From a Miniature by Hone, in the Collection of Richard Glover, Esq. 

Mr. Glover, the author of " Leonidas," and " Boadicea" — has a 
shrewd, gentlemanlike, and not very good-tempered look. He 
was one of the proteges of Frederic Prince of Wales, and wrote 
his poem of Leonidas to further the cause of liberty which was then 
in vogue with the prince. If we could forget Beaumont and Flet- 
cher's " Bonduca," we might he inclined to say a word or two in 
favour of some parts of our author's tragedy ; though, we like, on 
the whole, his well-known ballad of " Admiral Hosier's ghost" — 

" As near Porto Bello lying," &c. 
as well as anything that he has written. His blank verse is fre- 
quently abrupt and very defective in harmony, and he had not 
an original imagination. Almost all his figures are common- 
place, and were so when he began to write. What can be worse 
than the modulation of the following ? 

" The Hellespont they passed 
O'er frowning Thrace. The dreadful tidings swift 
To Corinth flew. Her Isthmus was the seat 
Of Grecian council. Alpheus thence returns 
To Lacaedemon. In assembly full," &c. 

or, 

" Reluctant was his tongue, 
Yet seemed full charged to speak. Religious dread 
Each heart relaxed. On every visage hung 
Sad expectation. Not a whisper told 
The silent fear. Intensely all were fixed," &c. 



JOHN LOGAN. 9? 

There are not two thoughts knit together. The following is much 
hetter. 

" On his aspect shine 
Sublimest virtue, and desire of fame, 
Where justice gives the laurel ; in his eye 
The inextinguishable spark which fires 
The souls of patriots, while his brow supports 
Undaunted valour, and contempt of death." 



No. 124. JOHN LOGAN. 

From a Drawing by Broivn, in the possession of Carlyle Bell, Esq. 

We thought, on the first glance, that this had heen mad Logan — 
(i. e. American Logan) — who dealt out death and thunderbolts, 
and washed his hands in blood and tears throughout a long life, 
which reaches through three considerable octavo volumes, and was 
published at New York, some three years since, to the utter con- 
fusion of criticism. The author of that book (who is also the au- 
thor of a novel, called, " Sixty-five," we believe) is a patriot of the 
most exclusive character. He lauds his native soil, till we really 
doubt whether our grass be as green as his, or whether we have 
the same compliment of legs and arms. Unhappily, after he has 
described some of his dramatis persona? as models for heroes, and 
spoken of them and others as the very " pink" of elegance, he 
admits us to their dialogues, and here we discover their infirmity. 
His plan is impartial, but unwise : and he convinces us of nothing 
but that his women are a little — coarse, (if we must speak,) and 
his men the mere swollen phantoms of courage. Some are exag- 
gerations of Drawcansir ; and some are like Bobadil — only bolder. 
His motto of " Our country, right — or wrong," is an unlucky ex- 
position of the modern principle of patriotism. 

H 



98 WILLIAM J. MICKLE. 

But our friend before us is not " mad Logan," or rather he is not 
American Logan. On the contrary, he is the author of a very 
reasonable and pretty poem on the " Cuckoo," (which has been 
repeatedly given in books of " Extracts," besides other agreeable 
verses. If we are to credit this portrait, he had a staring eye — a 
large projecting and unpleasant mouth — almost like that of an 
animal ; and his whole face will remind the reader of that un- 
happy culprit in Hogarth, (in the " Harlot's Progress,") who has 
given his mistress the wrong bottle of medicine, and put a pre- 
mature close to her sorrows. 



No. 125. WILLIAM J. MICKLE. 

From a Picture by Taylor, in the possession of C. J. Mickle, Esq. 

The translator of Camoens appears to have had a shrewd, deter- 
mined, and unaffected look. He reminds us of — (we forget which, 
but) — one of the late French revolutionists. He had little of the 
revolutionist in him, however, for he wrote repeatedly in defence 
of religion, and did not violate the orthodoxy even of the school of 
poetry which prevailed when he rose into public notice. He is 
occasionally a pleasant, graceful writer, but certainly cannot be 
said to have thrown auy new light upon the art which he professed 
and practised. Mr. Campbell has decided that he is more spirited 
than Sir Richard Fanshawe, and we are not inclined to dispute his 
tasteful decision. Nevertheless we can, we think, find solitary 
passages in the writings of Fanshawe, which are in every respect 
superior to anything that Mickle has produced. His account of 
the devices of Thrift, (the grandmother of the present utilitarians,) 
an " auncient crone," is very pleasantly written. 

" All round the borders where the pansie blue, 
Crocus, and polyanthus speckled fine, 



DOCTOR COTTON. 99 

And daffodils in fayre confusion grew 
Among the rosebush roots and eglantine, 
These now their place to cabbages resign, 
And tawdrie pease supply the lilly's stead ; 
Rough artichokes now bristle where the vine 
In purple clusters round the windows spread, 
And laisie cucumbers on dung recline the head." 

" The fragrant orchard,, once the summer's pride, 
Where oft by moonshine on the daisied green, 
In jovial daunce, or tripping side by side, 
Pomona and her buxom nymphs were seen" — 

and, in short, all tlie bloom and beauty, and all the fine fragrance 
of the meadows aud the flowers, are swept down and sacrificed at 
the shrine of that doubtful deity — Utility. 



No. 126. DOCTOR COTTON. 

F/-ow an original Sketch, in the possession of Captain Cotton. 

Doctor Cotton, whose name is associated with Cowper, was 
not certainly an eminent poet. As he contributed, however, 
to our hoards of verse, we find his profile in our collection. 
We have nothing to remark as to the worthy physician's verses, 
except that they are simple and somewhat moral : nor as to his 
person ; except that it looks like a pleasant section of a man. His 
lines entitled " The Fireside" are well known. They may be 
considered, in some respects, as a post-connubial epithalamium. 
" Though fools," he says — 

" Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, 
We, who improve his golden hours, 
By sweet experience know, 
That marriage, rightly understood, 
Gives to the tender and the good 
A paradise below." 



100 THOMAS WARTON. 

No. 127. THOMAS WARTON. 

From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of Mrs. Morgan, 

Warton seems, if we may judge from this portrait, which looks 
exceedingly like truth, to have had a heavy person, but a sensible 
countenance. He very much resembled the present Chancellor, 
Lord Eldon ; and he was as deeply read in the antiquities of lite- 
rature, as the law lord is said to be in jurisprudence. Warton is 
the author of that elaborate work entitled "The History of English 
Poetry," in which, though he has not come down very low 
amongst the moderns, he has done good service to the cause. 
Although a professed poet, and having much of the sensibility of 
the poet, he was in spirit more perhaps of an antiquarian. This 
overhangs almost every subject upon which he has written, and it 
must be confessed sometimes adds very considerably to the grace 
of his verses. His Odes on the " Crusade," and the " Grave of 
King Arthur," are by no means deficient in spirit, and are richly 
illuminated by the light of antiquity which he has thrown 
upon them. In his " Inscription on a Hermitage," there is a plea- 
sant account of an anchoret's enjoyments (Warton, by the way, 
was fond of ale, and of playing with the schoolboys at Winchester) 
— of his visitors, the blackbird and the wren, of his opening prim- 
roses, and " brass-embossed book," which he reads at evening, 
and then chants, as he says — 

" Then, as my taper waxes dim, 

Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn, 
And, at the close, the gleams behold 
Of parting wings bedropt with gold." 

But, of all Warton 's productions, we prefer on the whole his 
sonnets, which are exceedingly good, although inferior, in our 
opinion, to some of Mr. Wordsworth, to some of Shakspeare, 
and to almost all of Milton. 



SIR WILLIAM JONES. 101 

No. 128. GEORGE COLMAN. 

From a Picture by Zoffany, in the possession of the Publisher. 

George Colman the elder, (father of the living dramatist of 
that name,) was not, as far as we can recollect, a writer of much 
original verse. His introduction here, however, is partly upon 
that ground, and partly upon the strength of his comedies, which 
are well known, and generally and deservedly admired. He 
seems to have had small delicate features, and much precision 
about the mouth ; but withal to have possessed a quick observing 
eye, and to have looked as complete a gentleman as we remem- 
ber to have seen painted in any modern portrait. His " Jea- 
lous Wife" is a lively entertaining play, and his " Clandestine 
Marriage" contains one of the best characters of which comedy 
(certainly modern comedy) can boast. 



No. 129. SIR WILLIAM JONES. 

From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of Lady Jones. 

Sir William Jones, the acute and elegant orientalist, was the 
original, as the reader will perceive, of as elegant a picture. He 
has the look of a patient and sensible inquirer, and he was so. 
He was an excellent man, learned, indefatigable, acute. He 
walked like Spring into the dryest and most barren regions of 
learning, and scattered flowers wheresoever he trod. As a poet, 
however, he cannot be considered as taking a high stand : his 
mind was too much engrossed by other things ; yet his song to 
the " Damsels of Cardigan" is pretty, and his well known trans- 
lation from Hafiz is replete with grace. 

" Sweet maid, if thou would'st charm my sight, 
And bid these arms thy neck infold ; 



102 SAMUEL BISHOP. 

That rosy cheek, that lily hand, 
Would give thy poet more delight 
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold, 
Than all the gems of Samarcand. 

" Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow, 
And bid thy pensive heart be glad, 
Whate'er the frowning zealots say ; 
Tell them their Eden cannot shew 
A stream so pure as Rocnabad, 
A flower so sweet as Mosellay." 



No. 130. SAMUEL BISHOP. 

From a Drawingby Dance, in the possession of Miss Bishop. 

The character of Bishop's countenance is not very intellectual, 
and there is a timid, and almost mean expression about the mouth. 
He looks hut little qualified to insist upon the discipline necessary 
to be observed at Merchant Tailor's school, or to wield the wea- 
pons of Dr. Busby. But, we suppose, he did both occasionally, 
be.-ides writing his epigrams, and composing verses to his wife, — 
" To Mrs. Bishop." Of this lady he slugs sometimes more like 
the tea-kettle than the nightingale : 

" With that first ring I married youth, 

Grace, beauty, innocence, and truth, 

Taste long admired, sense long revered, 

And all my Molly then appeared." 

Again, here is a specimen of his " Basia" — 
If in a kiss— delicious treat ! 
Your lips acknowledge the receipt,* 
Love, fond of such substantial fare, 
And proud to play the glutton there, 
AH thoughts of cutting will disdain, 
Save only " cut and come again .'" — 

This is very uxorious. 



These verses were sent to Mrs. Bishop with a knife. 



ROBERT BURNS. 103 

No. 131. ROBERT BURNS. 

From a Drawing by Nasmyth, in the possession of Mrs. Burns. 
This portrait does not do justice to the countenance of the cele- 
brated Scottish poet ; but it is the only one, we believe, that is in 
existence. Burns, — who grew up like a daisy — or rather like a 
Sapling on a mountain side, upon whom the dews of poetry fell 
early, and the light of the dawn descended, — was altogether an ex- 
traordinary writer. He was really a pastoral poet ; not like Virgil, 
who sang of the husbandman's arts from the marble halls of 
Augustus Caesar, but following his plough in the Scottish valleys, 
or wandering by the brawling rivulets which he afterwards im- 
mortalized in song. We are not inclined here to touch upon his 
infirmities, if he had any; but to record our sense of his merits. 
He was the first writer of verse of whom Scotland could very 
largelyboast : and, indeed, he wasa fresh, original, vigorous writer, 
— not comparable, certainly, as a lofty poet, to several of our 
English spirits, but, after his own fashion, delightful and match- 
less. His humour, which however English readers in general can- 
not be supposed to appreciate, was perfect in its way ; his familiar 
epistles yield to none since Ben Jonson wrote ; and his songs are 
unsurpassed, except by Shakspeare. Burns was overflowing 
with sensibility, irritable, kind-hearted, and undaunted; and we 
see evidences of this in almost every page of his poetry. He has 
been accused of boasting, and of imprudence. But as no man ever 
possessed the faculty of Burns without perfectly knowing it, so 
the promulgation of this knowledge must be accounted indiscre- 
tion, rather than vanity ; and as to his general imprudence, it is, 
unfortunately, scarcely to be expected that the poet, who spreads 
his thoughts into the regions of imagination, should at the same time 
square his conduct by the severe rules of reason. The one is too 
much at variance with the other. There may, however, be two 
opinions on this subject. In regard to his powers, there can be 



104 ROBERT BURNS. 

but one. He was a true, unaffected, and what we may call natural 
poet : that is to say, he was not nourished like a sickly plant, by 
melancholy musing, nor raised prematurely to renown, in the hot 
bed of court favor ; but he sprang up in his native valley, while 
the winds and the rain fell freely on him. He was born " in the 
eye " of nature, and grew up and flourished like the forest oak. 
He was fresh, vigorous, and beautiful, but like the oak was cut 
down in his prime, that the people who had neglected him when 
living might shed tears upon his grave, and deify hhn as the first 
spirit of their land, and raise an unnecessary column to his fame. 
We do not like this posthumous gratitude. It is suspicious and 
idle to adore the dull ashes of a poet, when we might wreathe 
his living forehead with bays, and encircle him with our smiles, 
and shut out the ghastly face of poverty from his home. 

Burns was certainly deficient in imagination, but there is often 
a deep sentiment in his verse, which in some measure makes us 
amends for the other quality. What a delightful song is that " To 
Jessy" — 

" Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 
And soft as their parting tear — Jessy !" 

And tbose two exquisite lines (in the same song) 

" 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing 

Than aught in the world beside — Jessy.'' 

are the very romance of sentiment. These last resemble a pas- 
sage written by Cotton, (the friend of Walton,) which Burns in 
all probability never saw. The writer is speaking of his " Love," 

." For whom more glory 'tis to die 
Scorned and neglected, than enjoy 
All beauty in the ivorld beside." 

And the second stanza of Burns's song, addressed to " Mary 
Morison," is the perfection of the lover's melancholy, and tuneful 
as the widowed nightingale's lamenting. 



JOSEPH WARTON. 105 

No. 132. WJLLIAM MASON. 

From a Picture by Doughty, in the Collection of the Earl of Harcourt. 

Mason, the editor of Gray, and author of " Elfrida,"and" Carac- 
tacus," &c. has an unpleasant physiognomy. It is sleek, ill- 
tempered, important, and has the look of a solemn coxcomb. 
What resemblance his character bears to his countenance, the 
readers of his biography must determine. While he lived, he 
shone like the satellite of Gray, whose favor and friendship he 
courted. He is the person, we believe, who proposed passing- 
through Oxford by night, from a needless apprehension, lest the 
students should take the horses from his carriage, and draw him 
through that learned place in triumph. He should have known 
better ; for he upon whom the Muse shines, — 

" non equus impiger 
Curru ducet Achaico 
Victorem, neque res * * * Deliis 
Ornatum foliis ducem, 
Ostendet Capitolio :" 

or did he doubt— we rather think he did not — the favor in which 
he stood with Apollo and the sisters ? 



No. 133. JOSEPH WARTON. 

From the Monument by Flaxman, in Winchester Cathedral. 

Joseph Warton, brother of the historian, is best known by his 
Essay on Pope. He wrote some verse, however, though not of 
great merit or pretension. He has, in this print, a quiet pleasiug 
look, and seems as though he had forgotten himself to marble. 
The book which is open before him, and the name of Homer over 
his head, betray the schoolmaster, perhaps, as much as the poet. 



1 06 DOCTOR DARWIN. 

No. 134. WILLIAM COWPER. 

From a Picture by Jackson, in the Collection of Lord Cowper. 
This is incomparably the finest head that we ever saw of the poet 
Cowper. There is an odd mixture of melancholy and humour 
in the faee ; a satirical character in the mouth, and the eye is 
full of insanity. Altogether it is so admirable a portrait, that 
we think it quite needless to recommend it to the reader. 
We are not violent admirers of Cowper's poetry ; but we think 
that he did great service to the cause of poetry. He was a 
shrewd thinker, and an unaffected, and decidedly a more strait 
forward writer, (if we may be allowed to use the term) than any 
of his immediate predecessors. Jn his blank verse, particularly, 
harsh and even humble as it often is, he spurned many of the com- 
mon places which had grown round, and threatened to obscure the 
flower of poetry. He stripped verse bare ; but made it shrewd, 
sensible, even picturesque — substituting truth in all things (some- 
times prosaic truth) in room of the glossy unmeaning phrases, 
which were in use when he first rose into notice. We believe in 
all his descriptions and opinious. The first which, however, are 
often too minute and precise for poetry, have the character of 
individual likenesses, and are undoubted ; and the last even in 
their saddest times wear a gloomy look of sincerity. His humorous 
verse is very pleasant, and his satire sometimes piquant and 
even strong : and that he is not wanting in tenderness his " Lines 
on his mother's picture " and other poems amply testify. 



No. 135. DOCTOR DARWIN. 

From a Picture by Wright, in the possession of Mrs. Darwin. 

Had the friend of Miss Seward possessed a finer eye, he would 
have been very like an existing poet,— Mr. Coleridge. He wants, 



CHRISTOPHER ANSTEV. 107 

however, the fine self-absorbed maimer of the living writer, and 
that dreaming speculation which hovers over his countenance, like 
that of a rapt priestess, till he break out into his sybilline oracles 
and eloquent truths, which oppress his hearer into silent wonder. 
Darwin, with his hands leaning on the polished slab, seems like 
a mere common-place man, pondering upon the loves of the 
tulips, or labouring in the manufacture of a gawdy rhyme. 



No. 136. DR. BEATTIE. 

From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of Dr. Glenn ic. 

This is a very fine portrait of our old acquaintance Dr. Beattie, 
the author of " The Minstrel." He has a mild, amiable, inquir- 
ing look iu the eye, but the mouth is mean and inexpressive. 
He was something of a metaphysician, as well as a poet. His 
" Minstrel" has obtained at least its due share of praise ; fin- 
al though it is oftener read, it falls very far short of the merit of 
Thomson's Castle of Indolence. It is, in comparison with that 
poem, common-place ; but there is an amiable feeling running 
through it, which redeems it, and preserves its popularity. We 
have nothing further to urge on behalf of Dr. Beattie. 



No 137. CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY. 

From an original Picture in the possession of Arthur Anstey Calvert, Esq. 

We like the look of this portrait, as we like the lively writings of 
the author. Christopher Anstey looks like a gentleman. 
He has a full, open, confident, examining eye, and a shrewd 
mouth, and looks fit to have been the author of the Bath or the 
Pleader's Guide. We forget whether he or his descendant wrote 
the second poem, (The " Pleader's Guide,") but we remember ac- 
quiring some of our principles, legal and classical, from that 



108 CHARLOTTE SMITH. 

amusing work. We remember defending ourselves to some pur- 
pose with a quotation from Mr. Christopher Anstey, at a time 
when no other author stood forward in our behalf. It was at a 
period when we practised the gymnastic art, which goes by the 
name of " self-defence." Lest the reader should be pinched in 
an argument on that subject we will quote a line or two, which 
he may store in his memory : they are decisive in favour of pu- 
gilism. 

" Xow fighting 's in itself an action, 
That gives both parties satisfaction. 
A secret joy the bruiser knows, 
In giving and receiving blows, 
A nameless pleasure, only tasted 
By those who've thoroughly been basted." 

The argument is founded, as the classical reader will recoguize, 
upon the pleasant principles of the Epicurean philosophy, 



No. 138. CHARLOTTE SMITH. 

From a Picture by Opie, in the Collection of the late W. Hayley, Esq. 
The late Charlotte Smith was a very amiable woman, we 
believe, as well as a pleasing writer. Her " Old Manor House" 
was one of our first books, and we are still grateful for the plea- 
sure that it afforded us. Mrs. Smith was the authoress of several 
novels, as well as of some small poems ; and, indeed, the greater 
part of her sad life was employed in harassing her invention for 
tales and poetry, upon the profits of which her family were in 
some measure to subsist. She was a kind and exemplary wife, 
and her likeuess, which is now before the reader, will (if it does 
not strike his eye as beautiful) prepossess him, perhaps, in her 
favour, as a mild, plain, and unaffected woman. Her novels are 
much better than the ordinary run of those publications, and 
some of her little poems are very touching. 



CONCLUSION. 



We have now done with the English poets. We leave them — 
(their likenesses, and our remarks) to take their chance with the 
public ; secure that their merit, whatever it may be, will not re- 
main undiscovered. 

The reader will at once see that these portraits have been col- 
lected under difficulties which must necessarily enhance their 
value, at the same time that they extenuate any occasional omis- 
sion in the Catalogue of Poets. It appears evident that a large 
portion of England, Scotland, and Ireland has been traversed, 
and many collections, both public and private, examined and re- 
sorted to, for the purpose of securing the likenesses now offered. 
The proprietors appear not to have been satisfied as usual with 
generally received pictures, or ancient prints, but to have searched 
for the finest and most authentic portraits, and to have obtained 
them (or drawings from them at an evidently large expenditure, 
both of time and money. The result of this has been the work 
now offered to the public. 

In regard to the literary portion of the work, the Writer of the 
foregoing notes will be excused for statiug that he has been stimu- 
lated into eulogies upon many of the likenesses, by an unaffected 
admiration of the artists' talents, or a deep veneration for the 
poets themselves. It was not however his intention, neither was 
it in his power in these brief remarks, to go very deeply into the 
questions of poetry or of individual character. All that he de- 
signed was, to attach to each writer some little notice, sufficient to 
fix the reader's attention upon the portrait before him, but not 



110 CONCLUSION. 

long enough to detain him unduly from the next. He was de- 
sirous of in vesting each poet with something of an additional in- 
terest, beyond what his features alone would create ; so that a 
person, having once turned over the leaves of this publication, 
might be induced to recur now and then to particular pages, in 
order to see how the writer had done justice to a favorite poet, or 
what merit he could possibly have detected in one almost utterly 
unknown. 

This has been his intention; and he hopes that he may calcu- 
late on not having failed in it altogether : —For, he would fain lure 
the reader once more to his pleasure, and shew him distinctly the 
features and characters of those grand earthly magicians, the 
" English Poets," whose necromancy lay, not in distorting truth 
or mangling the grace of nature, but in castiug a radiant halo over 
the thoughts and feelings of ordinary life — in subduing to their 
purposes the burning phantoms of the imagination, or the terrible 
shadows of dreams — in vanquishing all things between earth and 
heaven, as well as all things upon earth or below it, to some be- 
neficial purpose, either of moral impulse or innocent delight. 
First, There is Chaucer, old indeed and venerable, but flourishing 
in green and deathless antiquity — Sac kville, Lord Buckhurst, our 
first tragic dramatist — the princely Surrey, famous for his misfor- 
tunes and his love — Sidney, the incarnation of chivalry — and the 
laurelled and ever-honoured Spenser : — Then, the " greater still 
behind," the light and renown of poetry, the sun whose splendour 
will never set, the sublime, the tender, the profound, the witty, 
the passionate, the divine and peerless Shakspeare, the crea- 
ture " of all time," who is, and has been, and shall be, 

" When time is old, and hath forgot itself," 

the ruling spirit of imagination, and the deity of song!— Then, 
Ben Jonson, " rare Ben Jonson," learned as a book, and rich as 



CONCLUSION. Ill 

old wine — Fletcher, as daring as a falcon, and airy as the summer 
la^ — and his friend and fellow- labourer, graceful and serious 
Beaumont— Old Chapman, bold as a lion, who guarded the 
golden treasures of Homer from prophaner touch — good old Mi- 
chael Drayton — and Middleton, the author of the " Witch' ' — 
Suckling who laughed at love, — and the quaint but passionate 
Quarles — Drummond of Hawthornden, whom Jonson visited — 
Lovelace, the poet aid the soldier — the amorous, ingenious 
Herrick, and the more ingenious Cowley — Fanshawe, who was 
both an ambassador and a translator of verse— and the august 
Genius of Milton, he who, by enchantments stronger than the 
moon, awoke the fiery waters from their sleep in hell, and lifted 
the fallen angels from their trance, the historian of that innu- 
merable host, who 

" Fled not in silence through the frighted deep," 

and who uow lives enthroned upon his fame, the second god of the 
region of poetry ! —Then, follows one worthy to follow, the all- 
excellent Marvell — then, humorous Butler — aud Otway, who 
wrote " Venice Preserved" — and Waller — and laughing Charles 
Cotton, who twisted lines of all sorts to suit his jocund purposes, 
and who angled with " old Isaac Walton " — and there is Isaac 
Walton himself, old as Christmas, but fresh and lusty as the 
month of May — and Dryden with his brave and sounding strain — 
the lively Prior — Congreve dazzling as an artificial star — and 
Gay, the author of " The Beggar's Opera" — Pope, unrivalled in 
his way, shrewd, complimentary, satiric, full of glittering fancy 
and airy wit — and Swift, the caustic dean, true hero of Brobdig- 
nag and Laputa — lazy and delightful Thomson, the historian of 
Indolence — Shenstone, author of the famous " Schoolmistress" — 
and the pastoral Allan Ramsay — the bear, Churchill — Young, 
the doctor — Akenside, the poet and physician — and Pindaric 



112 CONCLUSION. 

Gray — Colman, who sketched Lord Ogleby — Sir William 
Jones, famous for his eastern labours — learned Doctor John- 
son, and unlearned Burns, (a strong cedar on the mountain of 
poetry) — Warton, the historian of his art — Beattie, the author 
of " The Minstrel" — and lastly, the excellent unhappy Cowper. 
These are some of the names upon which the writer of these 
notes has dilated ; drawing out, as far as his limits would allow, 
the characters of each, and endeavouring to show that some sort 
of alliance might generally be traced between their natural and 
poetic lineaments ; sometimes praising, sometimes blaming, some- 
times digressing, but being tedious it is hoped but seldom, and 
never dishonest.— And now, he commits these his " Notes" to 
the reader's favour ; assuring him, that as a pleasant hour has 
been often derived from the composition, so the perusal may 
perhaps not prove barren of pleasure, if the reader himself will 
look upon the portraits with an unprejudiced eye, and bring to 
these brief and hasty sketches a mind not unwilling to be pleased. 

London, April 10, 1824. 






LONDON : 

Printed by D. S. Maurice, Fenchurch Street. 



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